Decompensated liver cirrhosis: assessment of complications and mortality in hospitalised patients

Abstract

Background. Liver cirrhosis is a severe, progressively fatal disease if untreated. Hospitalised patients face high mortality rates, and current methods for assessing prognosis vary widely. The research aims to investigate complications and predictors of mortality in patients admitted for decompensated cirrhosis to a tertiary care centre in Tirana, Albania. Materials and methods. The retrospective study included 212 patients aged (58.67 ± 10.09) years: 174 (82.1 %) men, 38 (17.9 %) women. The Child-Turcotte-Pugh, MELD, MELD-Na, MELD 3.0, iMELD, MESO, and UKELD scales were used to assess the severity of the condition and risk stratification of patients. The number of patients with a fatal outcome was 43 (20.3 %). Results. Among participants with different etiological factors of liver cirrhosis, the mortality rate did not differ significantly (p = 0.873). The presence of hepatic encepha­lopathy (0.43; p = 0.001), acute-on-chronic liver failure (r = 0.47; p = 0.001) and hepatorenal syndrome (r = 0.49; p = 0.001), and, to a lesser extent, ascites (r = 0.18; p = 0.006) and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (r = 0.23; p = 0.041) was a marker of unfavourable prognosis of hospitalisation. Also, the risk of death increased in the presence of leukaemia (hazard ratio = 4.21 (1.65; 10.74); p = 0.003). Conclusions. The MELD 3.0 and MELD-Na scores, calculated based on laboratory values obtained within 48–72 hours of hospitalisation, were found to be the prognostically significant (p < 0.05)