Letters To The Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Sep 28, 2016; 8(27): 1155-1156
Published online Sep 28, 2016. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i27.1155
Is MELD score failing patients with liver disease and hepatorenal syndrome?
Lena Sibulesky, Nicolae Leca, Christopher Blosser, Amir A Rahnemai-Azar, Renuka Bhattacharya, Jorge Reyes
Lena Sibulesky, Amir A Rahnemai-Azar, Jorge Reyes, Department of Surgery, Division of Transplant Surgery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Nicolae Leca, Christopher Blosser, Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Renuka Bhattacharya, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Author contributions: Sibulesky L wrote the paper and designed and conducted research; Leca N, Blosser C, Rahnemai-Azar AA, Bhattacharya R and Reyes J designed research and reviewed the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. No funding was received for this research.
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: Lena Sibulesky, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Transplant Surgery, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific Street, Box 356410, Seattle, WA 98195, United States. lenasi@uw.edu
Telephone: +1-206-5987797 Fax: +1-206-5984287
Received: May 26, 2016
Peer-review started: May 26, 2016
First decision: July 6, 2016
Revised: July 22, 2016
Accepted: August 6, 2016
Article in press: August 8, 2016
Published online: September 28, 2016
Processing time: 118 Days and 16.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The decompensation of patients with cirrhosis is associated with the development of hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) and renal insufficiency. There are several consequences of a high serum creatinine level in cirrhotic patients, including increased post - liver transplant mortality and increased risk of non-reversal of renal insufficiency/renal failure. We propose a change to the MELD scoring that would lead to timely liver transplantation in patients with HRS.