Hepatic encephalopathy and cirrhotic cardiomyopathy in intensive care unit

Acute and chronic liver diseases may escalate to hepatic encephalopathy (HE) and multiple organ failure, requiring admission and organ support in Intensive Care Unit (IC U). Hepatic dysfunction in IC U is a broad and complex topic; unfortunately, up to now, the understanding of its underlying pathophysiology is far from complete. HE and cirrhotic cardiomyopathy (CCM) need timely diagnostic and therapeutic measures aiming at the identification and elimination of causative factors, to improve patients' prognosis. Through this short review, we tried to answer the most asked questions about clinical features of HE and CC M at the IC U stage.