What is Cirrhosis
Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrotic scar tissue as well as regenerative nodules, leading to progressive los...
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TIPS shunt
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Craig mentioned this proceedure the other day. I asked the doc about it today at hubby's visit. We were told that this was a last resort type of option and really even then was not done unless very specific criteria were met.
Apparently the proceedure, while it does take stress off the liver and decrease portal pressure, it can (and usually does) cause encephalopathy and increase mental confusion because it allows more toxins to stay circulating in the blood. So I asked why they couldn't just put patients on Dialysis then. She said because dialysis does not clean out the same toxins the liver does. This was new info to me so I will have to do more research on it. But it seems to me that they should be able to come up with a technique to clean the blood of these toxins via some sort of dialysis. I was very frustrated after this conversation. Posted on 11/03/09, 04:11 pm |
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Do you want me to respond to this one or not? :-)
Craig 
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lol Why wouldn't I?
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Kidney dialysis is the removal of water soluble toxins from the blood supply, so in essence the dialysis machine is a water purifier or filter.
Liver dialysis is different. Our old friend Albumin is dispatched by the liver to all points of the human body. Albumin acts as a mini liver - thousands/millions of mini livers. Albumin's job is to get all manner of toxins to bind to it. The albumin transports the toxins back to the liver where the albumin is scrubbed. Great stuff albmin!!! The removal of toxins which have become 'stuck' to the albumin is way more complex that merely employing a filter - I guess it has to be a chemical process. Machines are available to do this process, but they are only seen as a stop gap on the way to a transplant. In addition, the machines are not recommended for long term use. Liver dialysis has been used in cases for HRS (hepatorenal syndrome), but the latest generation machine Prometheus, is still immature in terms of this type of treatment . I'm sure it may well be available one day, but stem cell research into growing new livers will probably remove the need for it. Craig
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