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Renal sodium retention, ascites, and portal hypertension coexist in cirrhosis. It is generally held that renal sodium retention results from ascites formation. According to this belief, ascites is initiated by portal hypertension through leakage of excessive lymph from a congested liver, causing effective plasma volume to contract and renal sodium retention to follow as a consequence of this contraction.We would like to propose an alternate theory: that ascites formation in cirrhosis is a consequence of plasma volume expansion, and that renal sodium retention helps to promote this expansion. In this overflow theory of ascites formation portal hypertension is considered to expand mechanically the

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