Bacterial infections in patient with liver cirrhosis

ABSTRACT BACTERIAL INFECTIONS IN PATIENT WITH LIVER CIRRHOSIS Patients with cirrhosis present several complications during the course of the disease and bacterial infections is one of the most frequent. Bacterial infections are more frequent in cirrhotic patients whose defences are altered against infectious agents than normal subjects. The aim of this trial was to asses the frequency of bacterial infections, the most frequent infections type during the course of cirrhosis, to determine the pathogenic microorganisms, and to find out the relationship between bacterial infections and etiology, activity, compansation status and grade which is determined by Child-Pugh grading system of the cirrhosis. 67 men and 33 women total 100 patients (mean age 53.7 ± 11.35 years ) with cirrhosis who were hospitalized at Çukurova University Intensive Care Unit and Gastroenterology Ward were included in this study. The indications for hospitalization of these 100 patients were bleeding oesophageal varices, ascites, fever, hepatic encephalopathy and hepatocelliiler carcinoma. Patients were diagnosed by clinical, biochemical, ultrasonographic^ and histopathological examinations. Majority of the cirrhotic cases were secondary to chronic viral hepatitis and were clasified in Child B stage. The frequency of the development of serious bacterial infections in cirrhotic patients was %59. Spontan ascitic infection, urinary tract infection, bacteremia and pneumonia were the most frequent type of infections.The responsible agents were gram negative bacteria in %63.9 of the cases. Clinical and biochemical parameters in bacterial infections were generally correlated with the severity of the cases. Child-Pugh clasification showed predominance of class C in infected cirrhotic patients compared to non-infected cases. During hospitalization the mortality rate of infected cirrhotic patients was %12. Spontan ascitic infection and mixt infections were most common type of infection with high mortality rate %33.3, versus %41.6, respectively. Key words: Cirrhosis, bacterial infections VI