Successful surgical management of ruptured umbilical hernias in cirrhotic patients

Acute umbilical hernia rupture in patients with hepatic cirrhosis and ascites is an unusual,but potentially lifethreatening complication,with postoperative morbidity about 70% and mortality between 60%-80% after supportive care and 6%-20% after urgent surgical repair.Management options include primary surgical repair with or without concomitant portal venous system decompression for the control of the ascites.We present a retrospective analysis of our centre's experience over the last 6 years.Our cohort consisted of 11 consecutive patients(median age:53 years,range:36-63 years) with advanced hepatic cirrhosis and refractory ascites.Appropriate patient resuscitation and optimisation with intravenous fluids,prophylactic antibiotics and local measures was instituted.One failed attempt for conservative management was followed by a successful primary repair.In all cases,with one exception,a primary repair with non-absorbable Nylon,interrupted sutures,without mesh,was performed.The perioperative complication rate was 25% and the recurrence rate 8.3%.No mortality was recorded.Median length of hospital stay was 14 d(range:4-31 d).Based on our experience,the management of ruptured umbilical hernias in patients with advanced hepatic cirrhosis and refractory ascites is feasible without the use of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt routinely in the preoperative period,provided that meticulous patient optimisation is performed.

Breath Biopsy^(®) to Identify Exhaled Volatile Organic Compounds Biomarkers for Liver Cirrhosis Detection

Background and Aims:The prevalence of chronic liver dis-ease in adults exceeds 30%in some countries and there is significant interest in developing tests and treatments to help control disease progression and reduce healthcare burden.Breath is a rich sampling matrix that offers non-invasive so-lutions suitable for early-stage detection and disease moni-toring.Having previously investigated targeted analysis of a single biomarker,here we investigated a multiparametric approach to breath testing that would provide more robust and reliable results for clinical use.Methods:To identify can-didate biomarkers we compared 46 breath samples from cir-rhosis patients and 42 from controls.Collection and analysis used Breath Biopsy OMNI™,maximizing signal and contrast to background to provide high confidence biomarker detec-tion based upon gas chromatography mass spectrometry(GC-MS).Blank samples were also analyzed to provide de-tailed information on background volatile organic compounds(VOCs)levels.Results:A set of 29 breath VOCs differed significantly between cirrhosis and controls.A classification model based on these VOCs had an area under the curve(AUC)of 0.95±0.04 in cross-validated test sets.The seven best performing VOCs were sufficient to maximize classifica-tion performance.A subset of 11 VOCs was correlated with blood metrics of liver function(bilirubin,albumin,prothrom-bin time)and separated patients by cirrhosis severity using principal component analysis.Conclusions:A set of seven VOCs consisting of previously reported and novel candidates show promise as a panel for liver disease detection and mon-itoring,showing correlation to disease severity and serum biomarkers at late stage.