Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Apr 8, 2015; 7(4): 688-695
Published online Apr 8, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i4.688
Cirrhosis and portal hypertension: The importance of risk stratification, the role of hepatic venous pressure gradient measurement
Vincenzo La Mura, Antonio Nicolini, Giulia Tosetti, Massimo Primignani
Vincenzo La Mura, Antonio Nicolini, Giulia Tosetti, Massimo Primignani, Fondazione IRCCS, Ca’ Granda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, 20100 Milano, Italy
Author contributions: La Mura V contributed to review concept and design; La Mura V and Tosetti G contributed to drafting of the manuscript; Nicolini A and Primignani M contributed to critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.
Conflict-of-interest: There are no conflict of interest to declare related with the manuscript.
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/
Correspondence to: Vincenzo La Mura, MD, PhD, Fondazione IRCCS, Ca’ Granda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, via F. Sforza, 20100 Milano, Italy. vin.lamura@gmail.com
Telephone: +39-02-5035432 Fax: +39-02-50320410
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 29, 2014
First decision: October 14, 2014
Revised: November 11, 2014
Accepted: January 9, 2015
Article in press: January 12, 2015
Published online: April 8, 2015
Processing time: 228 Days and 13.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Recently a pathophysiological classification of cirrhosis has been strongly encouraged. Hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) measurement is the most reliable tool to estimate the severity of portal hypertension in cirrhosis but several methodological concerns have limited its use in clinical practice. The article summarizes the results published about the prognostic value of HVPG and originally offers a critical revision of the information provided by this hemodynamic parameter on top of the most widely used models based on non-hemodynamic parameters.