Influence of recent advances in medical management on clinical outcomes of cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis and its disease-related complications are the 12th leading cause of mortality among U.S. adults and are the 5th leading cause of death for individuals aged 45 to 54 years. Hospitalization costs for disease-related complications are estimated at 18,000 dollars per episode of care, and 10% of admitted patients die. Despite these ominous findings, the survival rate of patients with cirrhosis has improved during the past 2 decades. This observation coincides with the conducting and reporting of high-quality randomized controlled trials and observational studies. Therefore, the improved prognosis in cirrhosis may be related to the effective translation of research findings to clinical practice for this patient population. Although explicit data to support this claim are not available, this article reviews the reported trends in clinical outcomes for patients with cirrhosis and the existence of evidence-based medical information that is available to care for these chronically ill patients.