ABSTRACT
Malnutrition is a common complication of end-stage liver failure (cirrhosis) and is an important prognostic indicator of clinical outcome (survival rate, length of hospital stay, posttransplantation morbidity, and quality of life) in patients with cirrhosis. Several studies have evaluated nutritional status in patients with liver cirrhosis of different etiologies and varying degrees of liver insufficiency [1, 2] leading to a consensus of opinion that malnutrition is recognizable in all forms of cirrhosis [3] and that the prevalence of malnutrition in cirrhosis has been estimated to range from 65%–100% [4, 5]. The causes of malnutrition in liver disease are complex and multifactorial.
