Mortality secondary to acute gastric variceal bleeding: a further prediction of outcome by acute kidney injury

Bleeding from the rupture of esophageal varices is one of the most serious complications of portal hypertension. In fact, up to 20% of patients die acutely or within 6 weeks after the bleeding episode (1). Advanced Child-Pugh class, an elevated hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG, ≥20 mmHg), high model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score values are the main predictors of this poor outcome (2-4). Therefore, many studies evaluated how to prevent variceal bleeding (or rebleeding) in cirrhosis.