What Is LiverTox, and How Can You Use It in Your Practice?

LiverTox is a free online resource created by the NIDDK and the National Library of Medicine, both Institutes within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Health care professionals can use LiverTox to find reliable information about drug-induced liver injury related to specific medicines, herbal products, and dietary supplements. LiverTox also provides up-to-date information that health care professionals can use to help recognize and diagnose drug-induced liver injury.

Health care professionals who care for patients with diabetes can use LiverTox to identify medicines and other products that could injure a patient’s liver. Patients with diabetes may be at greater risk of developing drug-induced liver injury. They are typically taking multiple medicines, some of which may be rare causes of liver injury. Sorting out whether a liver problem is due to a medicine as opposed to an underlying liver condition (such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease) is a challenge.

To help lower the risk for drug-induced liver injury, ask your patients about all the medicines they take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, herbal products, and dietary supplements.

LiverTox allows you to use generic or trade names to view a chapter that describes the features of liver injury caused by a specific medicine or product.

Each chapter includes

• background information on the agent and a concise review of the evidence that explains how it can injure the liver
• information on diagnosis and management that uses real case reports to illustrate the typical patterns and course of injury
• an extensive list of annotated references and a link to the article in PubMed

Visit LiverTox to learn more about drug-induced liver injury and how to use this valuable resource.

How do you help your patients avoid liver injury due to medicines and supplements? Tell us in the comments.