Curriculum · Cardiovascular and Hypertension
Cardiac cirrhosis from chronic right heart failure
What it is
Cardiac cirrhosis is a complication of right-sided heart failure, characterized by cirrhosis due to chronic hepatic vein congestion.
Causes and risk
The heart failure that lies under it is right-sided heart failure, which is most often caused by left-sided heart failure. Right-sided heart failure is preload dependent and needs fluids. The other route to it is increased right ventricular afterload, that is an increase in pulmonary artery pressure, as in pulmonary hypertension, and in tricuspid valve regurgitation or a left-to-right shunt. Left-sided heart failure, in turn, comes from increased left ventricular afterload: an increase in mean aortic pressure, as in arterial hypertension, or outflow obstruction, as in aortic stenosis.