Albumin: for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis as well as no spontaneous bacterial peritonitis infections?

Patients with cirrhosis often develop bacterial infections, not only because they are more often exposed to the risk of infection, due to frequent hospitalizations and invasive procedures, but also, and mainly, because they present an increased susceptibility. Enhanced bacterial translocation from the gut and impairments in both innate and acquired immunity account for this increased susceptibility1. In addition, once infections have occurred, abnormalities in the systemic inflammatory response coupled with the peculiar cardiovascular background of cirrhosis, make their consequences far more severe than in the general population2. Thus, bacterial infections represent a common and severe complication that physicians treating patients with cirrhosis are frequently called to deal with.