Regardless of preexisting lung illness, patients suffering from liver cirrhosis, especially decompensated can develop distinct pulmonary complications. Liver cirrhosis should be assessed for hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS), portopulmonary hypertension (PoPH), hepatic hydrothorax (HH) and spontaneous bacterial empyema (SBEM) which are the most clinically significant consequences, in particular wh...

BACKGROUND Decompensated cirrhosis is a serious clinical complication of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) that places a large economic burden on the US health care system. Although entecavir has been shown to improve health outcomes in a cost-effective manner in mixed populations of CHB patients, the cost-effectiveness of entecavir has not been evaluated in CHB patients with decompensated cirrhosis. ...

BACKGROUND & AIMS There is a close relationship between chronic hepatitis B virus infection and chronic renal disease. We analyzed changes in renal function using different markers of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in multiple studies of telbivudine treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection. METHODS We used serum creatinine-based equations (ie, Cockcroft-Gault, Modifica...

Background & Aims Bacterial infections (BI) affect the natural course of cirrhosis and were suggested to be a landmark event marking transition decompensated stage. Our specific aim was evaluate impact BI on history compensated cirrhosis. Methods We analyzed 858 patients with cirrhosis, evaluated for INCA trial (EudraCT 2013-001626-26) in 2 academic medical centers between February 2014 May 201...

BACKGROUND The optimal oral anti-viral agent to use in patients with decompensated HBV cirrhosis remains unclear. AIM We performed a meta-analysis of the oral nucleos(t)ide analogues in patients with decompensated HBV cirrhosis. METHODS One year efficacy and safety outcomes in 22 studies published in English between '95 and 2010 were analysed. RESULTS Substantial heterogeneity was noted i...

UNLABELLED The effect of viral suppression on long-term disease outcome after decompensation in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related cirrhosis has not been established. The aim of this study was to determine the long-term effect of antiviral therapy (AVT) in patients with HBV-related decompensated cirrhosis. This was a multicenter, prospective, inception cohort study of 707 patients wh...

The concept of 'cirrhosis' is evolving and it is now clear that compensated and decompensated cirrhosis are completely different in terms of prognosis. Furthermore, the term 'advanced chronic liver disease (ACLD)' better reflects the continuum of histological changes occurring in the liver, which continue to progress even after cirrhosis has developed, and might regress after removing the etiol...

The syndrome of cirrhotic cardiomyopathy, first recognized in 1969 but mistakenly presumed to reflect latent alcoholic cardiomyopathy in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis, is now recognized to occur in all forms of cirrhosis, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and thus is associated with cirrhosis per se. The hallmark of the syndrome is normal or increased ventricular contractility at rest, but depre...

The hyponatraemia common in decompensated cirrhosis arises in part from secretion of antidiuretic hormone attributed to a decrease in effective blood volume. Baroreceptors send inhibitory impulses to the midbrain and hypothalamus through the vagus and glossopharyngeal nerves. Since vagal neuropathy often occurs in chronic alcoholism, this might theoretically contribute to the inappropriate secr...