Practicalities of nutrition support in chronic liver disease.
The underlying causative agent in the majority of patients with chronic liver disease is ethanol; the rest of the cases are largely viral in aetiology (hepatitis B or C viruses). Nutrition supplementation improves the quality of life and decreases morbidity in chronic liver disease, but evidence that it prolongs long-term survival is lacking. The situation is very different in chronic liver disease patients who receive a liver transplant, however, with better pretransplantation nutrition status predicting a distinctly improved survival after transplantation.
Gopalan
S
S
Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute, New Delhi, India. crnss@hotmail.com
Saran
S
S
Sengupta
R
R
D002908:Chronic Disease; D006801:Humans; D008107:Liver Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy*; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D009752:Nutritional Status; D018529:Nutritional Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors