Epidemiology of autoimmune liver disease

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) are chronic liver diseases that likely have an autoimmune basis to their pathogenesis. Although significant strides have been made in the clinical management of these conditions, their pathogenesis remains obscure. Understanding of various epidemiological factors may shed light on predisposing or causative factors for these diseases. Most is known about the epidemiology of PBC, with only minimal information on that of PSC and AIH. In this review, the current data on the epidemiology of PBC, AIH and PSC are summarized and suggestions are made for future work in this important area. (C) 2003 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.