Commentary
Cardiovascular death is an important cause of mortality in end stage liver disease patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplant. Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction is often the early manifestation of cirrhotic cardiomyopathy.
In order to understand the risk factors for ventricular diastolic dysfunction in end stage liver disease patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplant, HK Marella et al. (University of Tennessee/Methodist University Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA) reviewed the electronic medical records of 100 consecutive patients who underwent orthotopic liver transplant. Diastolic dysfunction had been evaluated by transthoracic echocardiogram.
In this cohort of patients, NASH and female gender were independent predictors of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. However, presence of LVDD did not influence neither immediate post-transplant outcome nor 30-day all-cause mortality.
Limitations of this study include its sample size, short post-transplant outcomes follow-up, and retrospective design.
