Smoking and co-infection with hepatitis B or C, which were both significantly related to mortality, were not significantly associated with either IL-6 (p = 0.19 for smoking and p = 0.16 for co-infection) or D-dimer (p = 0.64 for smoking and p = 0.39 for co-infection) at baseline. Here, IL6 is linked to hepatitis B virus infection.