Renal damage in liver cirrhosis: pathophysiology and management

Acute renal failure in liver disease includes prerenal renal failure, acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and hepatorenal syndrome (HRS). Patients with liver cirrhosis are susceptible to prerenal renal failure because of gastrointestinal bleeding, diuretics and paracentesis etc. ATN is more common in patients with obstructive jaundice but it also develops as a result of prolonged prerenal renal failure. HRS is a functional form of oliguric acute renal failure, occurring in patients with advanced liver disease in the absence of known cause of renal failure. Intrarenal vasoconstriction, attributable to a decrease in effective arterial blood volume, induced by peripheral arterial vasodilation, is proposed to play a causative role. Central hemodynamic monitoring is useful to distinguish HRS from other reversible conditions with renal failure in liver disease.