Diagnosis and treatment of abdominal infection in patients with liver cirrhosis: Advances and challenges

Infection is the most common complication in patients with end-stage liver disease, among which abdominal infection is the most common type. There is a low positive rate of ascitic fluid culture, and abdominal infection is mainly diagnosed based on multinucleated cell count in ascites and is mainly treated by empirical antimicrobial therapy. The diagnostic criteria for abdominal infection have limited guiding significance in clinical practice, and currently there are still no new diagnostic markers that can be used in clinical practice. For the pathogenic diagnosis of abdominal infection, metagenomic next-generation sequencing is a new technique for rapid identification of pathogens of abdominal infection or overlap infection in liver cirrhosis. In terms of treatment, Chinese guidelines on the management of ascites in cirrhosis emphasize antimicrobial therapy and give no explicit recommendation for the dose of human serum albumin infusion. There are still great challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of abdominal infection in cirrhotic patients, and more studies are needed in the future to answer relevant questions and better guide clinical practice, including the optimization of the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of abdominal infection.