New strategies for the management of decompensated cirrosis: long‐term albumin administration for everyone?

Abstract

Natural history of cirrhosis is characterized by the progression from a compensated to a decompensated state, which is defined by the development of several complications of the disease (1). Ascites is the most frequent complication of patients with decompensated cirrhosis, but other common complications include hepatic encephalopathy, GI bleeding, bacterial infections, kidney failure and hyponatremia. Decompensated cirrhosis is not only associated with poor outcome, with median survival of approximately 2 years, but also with impaired health‐related quality of life and high economic burden due to frequent hospital admissions and use of health‐care resources. Currently, management of decompensated cirrhosis is mainly based on symptomatic treatment of individual complications once they occur, rather than using a pathophysiological approach (2).

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