Background. Cystatin C (CysC) is an early biomarker of renal dysfunction scarcely studied in patients awaiting liver transplantation (LT). Sarcopenia is frequent in cirrhosis and impacts prognosis. We aimed to assess the capability of these factors to predict survival and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) in patients awaiting LT, as well as early post-LT outcomes. Methods. Single-center study that included all cirrhotic patients listed for LT between 2014 and 2017. Competing risk regression analysis was used to evaluate the capability of liver-, kidney-, and global status-related variables at waitlist (WL) inclusion to predict WL mortality and ACLF. Variables associated with post-LT outcomes were evaluated with logistic regression analysis. Results. One-hundred-and-eighty patients were included. Fifty-six (31%) patients developed ACLF, 54 (30%) underwent LT and 35 (19%) died. In the adjusted competing risk regression analysis, CysC ≥ 1.5 mg/L, sarcopenia and MELD-Na were independent predictors of ACLF in the WL, while CysC ≥ 1.5 mg/L, sarcopenia and albumin were independent predictors of mortality. The cumulative incidence of ACLF and mortality at 12 months were 50% and 34% in patients with sarcopenia and CysC ≥1.5 mg/L. An estimated glomerular filtration rate by chronic kidney disease (CKD)-EPI-CysC-creatinine <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 at WL inclusion was an independent predictor of the need for renal replacement therapy (RRT) in the first month post-LT. Conclusions. Higher levels of CysC and sarcopenia are strongly associated with the ACLF and mortality in WL. The assessment of both risk factors may improve the prognostic evaluation and allow identifying a group of patients with a very high risk of poor outcomes while awaiting LT.

Sarcopenia is a prevalent condition that predicts prognosis in patients awaiting liver transplantation (LT). The gold standard for the diagnosis of sarcopenia is the assessment of the muscular area at L3 with computed tomography (CT) scan (skeletal muscle index [SMI]), but the routine use of CT scan is limited in clinical practice. Thus, we designed a single-center observational study aimed to evaluate the clinical factors associated with the presence of sarcopenia by SMI, and to build a score capable of predicting or excluding the presence of sarcopenia in patients on the LT waiting list (WL). Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to establish the factors independently associated with sarcopenia, and the Sarcopenia Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (HIBA) score was built from the resulting model after internal validation analysis by bootstrapping and correction for optimism. The predictive capability of mortality on the WL was evaluated with competing risk regression analysis. A total of 215 patients with cirrhosis on the LT WL were included. The independent factors associated with the presence of sarcopenia were male sex (odds ratio[OR]: 6.09, p < 0.001), body mass index (OR: 0.74, p < 0.001), Child Pugh (OR:1.44, p < 0.001), and the ratio creatinine/Cystatin C (OR: 0.03, p = 0.007).The Sarcopenia HIBA score constructed with these variables showed an area under the curve of 0.862. During follow-up, 77 (36%) patients underwent LT, 46 (21%) died, and 92 (43%) remained alive. After adjusting for Model for End-Stage Liver Disease-Sodium, Sarcopenia HIBA score was an independent predictor of WL mortality (subhazard ratio: 1.19; 95% confidence interval 1.01-1.40; p = 0.042). Sarcopenia HIBA score is an easy-to-use, objective, and reliable diagnostic and predictive tool that can be useful to improve the prognostic evaluation and allow identifying a group of patients with a higher risk of death while awaiting LT.

Hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) is a serious complication of cirrhosis with high morbidity and mortality rates. Recently, the definition of HRS type 1 has been updated and is now called HRS‐AKI. This new definition reduces the risk of delaying HRS treatment and eliminates the need to establish a minimum creatinine cut‐off for the diagnosis of HRS‐AKI. From a pathophysiological point of view, newly identified mechanisms involved in the development of HRS are related to the inflammatory response, conditioning the development of extrahepatic organ dysfunction in patients with cirrhosis. One of the main challenges for the diagnosis of HRS is the validation of new biomarkers to obtain an early and differential diagnosis of kidney injury (eg HRS vs. ATN). Treatment of HRS is based on the use of vasoconstrictive agents in combination with albumin and terlipressin is the most widely used vasoconstrictor drug, with a high response rate. The effects of a continuous infusion of terlipressin at a dose of 2‐12 mg/day was similar to bolus administration, but with lower rates of adverse events. Finally, MELD/MELD‐Na which includes creatinine as one of its main determinants gives AKI‐HRS patients priority on the waiting list (WL) for liver transplant (LT). However, the MELD and MELD‐Na scores are reduced in responding patients, resulting a longer waiting time in these patients than in non‐responders. Thus, the initial MELD/MELD‐Na score (pre‐treatment value) should be used to prioritize patients on the WL for LT in these cases.