INTRODUCTION Acute renal failure (ARF) is a common complication in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. The traditional diagnostic criteria of renal failure in these patients were proposed in 1996 and have been refined in subsequent years. According to these criteria, ARF is defined as an increase in serum creatinine (sCr) of ≥50% from baseline to a final value >1.5 mg/dL (133 mmol/L). Howeve...

BACKGROUND The 13C-caffeine breath test (CBT) is a non-invasive, quantitative test of liver function which has been shown to correlate inversely to the Child-Pugh score. The aim of the study was to determine the utility of CBT in the assessment of cirrhosis and its correlation to the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score. METHODS Thirty-nine patients, 29 with cirrhosis and 10 with ch...

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that DM may reduce survival of patients with liver cirrhosis (LC). Nevertheless only few prospective studies assessing the impact of DM on mortality of cirrhotic patients have been published, none in compensated LC. AIMS (i) to study the impact of DM on mortality and (ii) to identify predictors of death. METHODS Patients with compensated LC with and without ...

Article type: Editorial Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Untreated Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) cirrhosis runs a progressive course to liver failure and death. However, new antivirals that adequately control HBV replication can interrupt this ominous clinical course, are capable of reverting liver fibrosis and may avoid liver transplantation. Therefore indefinite tr...

Background The rate of hospital admissions for cirrhosis increased 1.3-fold during 2008–2016 in Queensland. Alcohol misuse was a contributing factor 55% and 40% patients had at least one comorbidity. Aims To examine the temporal change aetiology liver disease presence comorbidity admitted with cirrhosis. Methods Population-based retrospective cohort study all people treated (10 254 patients) Qu...

The treatment of moderate to severe hyponatraemia in patients with decompensated liver disease is unsatisfactory. We report our preliminary experience using intravenous infusion of albumin to treat this condition. Three patients with cirrhosis, ascites, and hyponatraemia responded satisfactorily to treatment; one patient with fulminant hepatitis B did not respond. Intravenous albumin infusion i...

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic hepatitis of unknown etiology which can progress to cirrhosis. Its clinical manifestations are highly variable and sometimes follow a fluctuating course. Diagnosis is based on characteristic histologic, clinical, biochemical and serological findings. Anti-inflammatory/immunosuppressive treatment frequently induces remission but long-term maintenance thera...

Patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis have various serious complications which require multiple drugs for therapeutic or prophylactic use. Majority of the drugs are primarily metabolized and excreted by hepatobiliary system; hence, liver cell necrosis contributes to impaired drug handling in liver failure while portosystemic shunt can alter drug action in cirrhosis. Hence, in order to dec...

BACKGROUND/AIMS No prospective study has been published investigating etiology of HCC in Latin America. The primary aim of this prospective study was to analyze the etiology of liver disease in patients with HCC from our area. Secondary aims were to evaluate staging using Okuda and BCLC classifications; and percentage of patients receiving treatment. METHODS The Governing Board of the Latin A...