Portal vein thrombosis: a baffling problem in cirrhosis

Portal vein thrombosis (PVT) is a vexing complication in patients with cirrhosis, often discovered during routine imaging or upon workup of a decompensating hepatic event (1). The burden of non-malignant PVT remains unclear with conflicting data on its survival impact in cirrhotics (2). Much of the data on PVT is acquired from retrospective, single center studies (3), although large datasets have been used to examine the impact of PVT in subset of populations such as liver transplant waitlist registrants and recipients (3,4). Large databases remain critical for answering large-scale epidemiologic studies, but caution is warranted when utilizing data as it needs to be interpreted within the context of the database design to avoid pitfalls and inadequate conclusions (5,6).