Advances in decompensated cirrhosis treatment by human serum albumin

Abstract

Human serum albumin (HSA) is one of the most abundant proteins in the plasma which participate in plenty of physiological functions. This article reviews recent advances in HSA-related researches with respect to its synthesis, metabolism, structure, function, and clinical application in decompensated cirrhosis and its adverse events. As a multidomain polyfunctional molecule, HSA has not only shown its effect on colloid osmotic pressure elevation, but also its non-colloid functions including ligand binding capacity, antioxidant ability, immunoregulatory effect, and maintaining the stability of endothelium and permeability of capillary. However, the structure of HSA is easily affected by pathology surroundings including various posttranslational modifications of HSA, such as truncated N-terminal or C-terminal, glycosylation, and oxidation of Cys-34. Among these, the oxidation modification of Cys-34 in HSA is closely related to cirrhosis progression and has a strong prognostic ability of clinical outcomes. Besides prevention of post paracentesis circulatory dysfunction, HSA administration also shows excellent treatment potentials in the cirrhotic complications, including hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) and spontaneous peritonitis (SBP). Furthermore, more clinical trials are needed to discuss the potential benefits of HSA in non-SBP infection, long-term administration of ascites, hepatic encephalopathy, acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) and other cirrhotic complications.

Keywords

• human serum albumin (hsa)
• decompensated cirrhosis
• ascites
• acute-on-chronic liver failure (aclf)