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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2015; 21(41): 11502-11521
Published online Nov 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i41.11502
Published online Nov 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i41.11502
Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy
Luis Ruiz-del-Árbol, Regina Serradilla, Hepatic Hemodynamic Unit, Gastroenterology Department, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, University of Alcalá, 28034 Madrid, Spain
Author contributions: Ruiz-del-Árbol L designed, performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper; Serradilla R performed research and analyzed data.
Supported by Grants from Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (FIS 06/1082, in part).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors had no conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Luis Ruiz-del-Árbol, MD, Hepatic Hemodynamic Unit, Gastroenterology Department, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, University of Alcalá, Ctra. de Colmenar Viejo Km 9.1, 28034 Madrid, Spain. lruizarbol@gmail.com
Telephone: +34-913-368387 Fax: +34-913-368085
Received: April 15, 2015
Peer-review started: April 17, 2015
First decision: May 18, 2015
Revised: June 17, 2015
Accepted: September 14, 2015
Article in press: September 14, 2015
Published online: November 7, 2015
Peer-review started: April 17, 2015
First decision: May 18, 2015
Revised: June 17, 2015
Accepted: September 14, 2015
Article in press: September 14, 2015
Published online: November 7, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: During the course of cirrhosis, there is an impairment in cardiac function with decrease in cardiac output. This process is due to a cirrhotic cardiomyopathy with diastolic dysfunction that may compromise the inotropic function which takes place in parallel with a chronotropic heart dysfunction. This cardiomyopathy plays an important role in the pathogenesis of the impairment of effective arterial blood volume in cirrhosis. The clinical consequences of cardiac dysfunction may be an inadequate cardiac output in response to clinical events that produce effective hypovolemia leading to renal failure. The severity of cardiomyopathy is a marker of advanced cirrhosis and mortality.