The long-term mortality of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in cirrhotic patients: A 3-year nationwide cohort study.

BACKGROUND/AIMS There is no nationwide population-based study for the long-term mortality after single episode of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) in cirrhotic patients. Our study showed the short-term and long-term mortalities, and identified the mortality risk of SBP. MATERIALS AND METHODS The National Health Insurance Database, derived from the Taiwan National Health Insurance program, was used to collect data from 16,992 cirrhotic patients. These cirrhotic patients were classified into three groups: SBP group (n=451, 2.7%), ascites without SBP group (n=2,564, 15.1%), and non-ascites (n=13,977, 82.3%) group. Each patient was followed up to 3 years after the initial hospitalization. RESULTS The 30-day mortalities in SBP, ascites without SBP, and non-ascites groups were 24.2%, 14.1%, and 8.1%, respectively. The 3-year mortalities in SBP, ascites without SBP, and non-ascites groups were 66.5%, 61.1%, and 41.5%. After Cox's regression analysis adjusted by the patients' age, gender, and underlying medical disorders, the SBP patients (hazard ratio=2.52) and ascites without SBP patients (hazard ratio=1.91) have higher risk for 3-year mortality than those without ascites. CONCLUSION Cirrhotic patients with SBP have a 2.5-fold increase of 3-year mortality, compared to those without ascites.