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©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 27, 2019; 11(6): 531-541
Published online Jun 27, 2019. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v11.i6.531
Published online Jun 27, 2019. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v11.i6.531
Efficacy of long-term rifaximin treatment for hepatic encephalopathy in the Japanese
Shinya Nishida, Department of Gastroenterology, Shin-Yurigaoka General Hospital, Kawasaki 215-0026, Japan
Koichi Hamada, Noriyuki Nishino, Daizo Fukushima, Ryota Koyanagi, Yoshinori Horikawa, Yoshiki Shiwa, Satoshi Saitoh, Department of Gastroenterology, Southern-Tohoku General Hospital, Koriyama 963-8563, Japan
Koichi Hamada, Ryota Koyanagi, Department of Minimally Invasive Surgical and Medical Oncology, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan
Satoshi Saitoh, Department of Hepatology, Toranomon Hospital, Tokyo 105-8470, Japan
Author contributions: Nishida S, Hamada K and Saitoh S designed the research; Nishida S, Hamada K, Fukushima D, Koyanagi R, Horikawa Y and Shiwa Y performed the research and collected the data; Nishida S, Hamada K and Saitoh S analyzed the data; Nishida S wrote the paper; Hamada K, Nishino N and Saitoh S revised the manuscript for important intellectual content.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Southern-Tohoku General Hospital.
Informed consent statement: This study was retrospective in nature, thus this study received ethical approval for the use of an opt-out methodology.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE statement, and the manuscript was prepared according to the STROBE statement checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Koichi Hamada, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, Southern-Tohoku General Hospital, 7-115 Yatsuyamada, Koriyama 963-8563, Japan. koichi.hamada@mt.strins.or.jp
Telephone: +81-24-9345322 Fax: +81-24-9345328
Received: May 8, 2019
Peer-review started: May 10, 2019
First decision: June 3, 2019
Revised: June 9, 2019
Accepted: June 17, 2019
Article in press: June 17, 2019
Published online: June 27, 2019
Processing time: 51 Days and 5.5 Hours
Peer-review started: May 10, 2019
First decision: June 3, 2019
Revised: June 9, 2019
Accepted: June 17, 2019
Article in press: June 17, 2019
Published online: June 27, 2019
Processing time: 51 Days and 5.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of long-term rifaximin therapy for hepatic encephalopathy in the Japanese population. Serum ammonia level was maintained at a significantly low median value of 80.5 μg/dL (range, 44-150 μg/dL) at 24 wk after treatment, and the long-term use of rifaximin did not worsen liver function.