Sequential assessment of liver stiffness in heart failure identifies cardiac cirrhosis

Introduction: Cardiac insufficiency may severely impair hepatic function either due to congestion or impaired perfusion eventually resulting in cardiac cirrhosis. Thus far, cardiac cirrhosis has been largely underestimated due to limitations in assessing fibrosis. We here assess cardiac fibrosis in patients with heart failure by seuqnetial determination of liver stiffness (LS) during recompensation therapy and analyze the cardiac and hepatic determinants of increased LS. Methods and patients: In the retrospective learning cohort, 100 patients with acute decompensated heart failure were retrospectively analysed f…