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 (ICU). Hepatic dysfunction in ICU 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. For this short review, we tried to answer the most asked questions about clinical features of HE and CCM at the ICU stage.