Albumin administration in patients with cirrhosis: Should it be done routinely?

In the ANSWER trial, the overall incidence of variceal bleeding was comparable in the 2 groups, although the incidence of bleeding secondary to portal hypertensive gastropathy was higher in patients receiving HA. [...]more data may be necessary on the safety of long-term HA in patients with variceal...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The National medical journal of India 2018-11, Vol.31 (6), p.349-351
Main Author: Sharma, Sanchit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Albumin
Analysis
Bacterial infections
Care and treatment
Clinical medicine
Clinical trials
Cost analysis
Diuretics
Dosage and administration
Drug dosages
Gastroenterology
Hepatology
Hospitals
Internal medicine
Liver
Liver cirrhosis
Medical prognosis
Medical research
Medicine
Mortality
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In the ANSWER trial, the overall incidence of variceal bleeding was comparable in the 2 groups, although the incidence of bleeding secondary to portal hypertensive gastropathy was higher in patients receiving HA. [...]more data may be necessary on the safety of long-term HA in patients with variceal and portal hypertensive bleeding. An overall cost-benefit analysis covering all the direct as well as indirect costs needs to be undertaken before the routine use of HA can be recommended. [...]it is unclear whether infusion of smaller amounts of albumin would also be equally effective in preventing the complications of cirrhosis; this needs to be explored in future studies. [...]it was an open-label trial, with no placebo being administered to the control group. [...]subj ects in the intervention group were administered HA by nursing personnel either in an outpatient or a home-care setting, and had a contact with healthcare personnel every week; those in the SMT group did not have such contact. [...]despite the benefit of long-term HA administration on the prognosis of patients with cirrhosis who have ascites, these results need to be validated in other populations given the high cost of this treatment. [...]cost-effectiveness analyses of long-term HA infusion needs to be done in different settings, particularly in developing countries where the cost of treatment is borne largely by the patients.
ISSN:0970-258X
0970-258X
DOI:10.4103/0970-258X.262916