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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Mar 27, 2015; 7(3): 507-520
Published online Mar 27, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i3.507
Published online Mar 27, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i3.507
Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy: Implications for the perioperative management of liver transplant patients
Suehana Rahman, Susan V Mallett, Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Free London NHS Trust, London NW3 2QG, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Rahman S and Mallett SV contributed equally to this work.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors of this manuscript have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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: Suehana Rahman, MBBS, FRCA, Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Free London NHS Trust, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG, United Kingdom. suehana.rahman@nhs.net
Telephone: +44-207-7940500 Fax: +44-207-8302245
Received: September 11, 2014
Peer-review started: September 11, 2014
First decision: November 3, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 16, 2014
Published online: March 27, 2015
Peer-review started: September 11, 2014
First decision: November 3, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 16, 2014
Published online: March 27, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy is characterised by a blunted inotropic and chronotropic response to stress, impaired diastolic relaxation and prolongation of the QT interval. It is only recently that it has been recognised as a definitive clinical entity, and yet it has significant implications in a number of clinical situations in which there is increased physiological demand, which can lead to acute cardiac decompensation and heart failure. Liver transplantation is one such situation, and in this review we discuss criteria for diagnosis, possible methods to limit further deterioration and the perioperative management of these patients.