Increased intestinal macromolecular permeability and urine nitrite excretion associated with liver cirrhosis with ascites

Table 1 Demographics and characteristics of the subjects (mean ± SE )

	Cirrhotics with ascites (n = 26)	Cirrhotics without ascites (n = 27)	Healthy controls (n = 26)
Age (yr)	54.7 ± 9.6	53.9 ± 9.7	50.3 ± 9.2
Sex (M/F)	23/3	21/6	17/9
Etiology
Alcohol	16	15
Viral1	9	12
Alcohol/viral2	1	0
Child class (A/B/C)	1/16/9	22/5/0
Child-Pugh score	8.8 ± 0.44b	6.3 ± 0.34
Serum albumin (g/dL)	2.8 ± 0.11b	3.5 ± 0.12
Serum bilirubin (mg/dL)	5.1 ± 0.92b	2.0 ± 0.43
Prothrombin time (s)	15.7 ± 0.50a	14.3 ± 0.40
AST (IU/L)	78.3 ± 9.45	74.8 ± 11.4
ALT (IU/L)	34.1 ± 4.8	51.5 ±8.9
Encephalopathy	9a	2
Esophageal varix	11	9

¹Viral etiology-cirrhosis with ascites (HBV-6, HCV-3) and cirrhosis without ascites (HBV-8, HCV-4);

²Viral etiology-HBV-1.

^aP < 0.05,

^bP < 0.01 vs cirrhosis without ascites.