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Letter to the Editor:
We read with great interest the article by Leithead et al,1 which showed that non-selective beta-blocker (NSBB) therapy was found to be beneficial for patients with ascites, and associated with reduced waitlist deaths even in those with refractory ascites. The study by Sersté et al2 was the first to suggest that NSBB therapy is associated with an increased mortality in patients with cirrhosis and refractory ascites. This led to the NSBB ‘therapeutic window’ hypothesis that claimed that the window would close once a patient developed refractory ascites.3 However, the issue remains controversial as subsequent publications have shown disparate results. In a recent study by Bossen et al,4 which compiled data from three randomised …
Footnotes
Contributors BN, TRM and GG-T conceived the idea, extracted the data, carried out the analysis and wrote the manuscript.
Funding National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIH 5 T32 DK 7356-37 (BN)).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.