Nathan M Bass, Kevin D Mullen, Arun Sanyal, Fred Poordad, Guy Neff, Carroll B Leevy, Samuel Sigal, Muhammad Y Sheikh, Kimberly Beavers, Todd Frederick, Lewis Teperman, Donald Hillebrand, Shirley Huang, Kunal Merchant, Audrey Shaw, Enoch Bortey, William P Forbes
BACKGROUND: Hepatic encephalopathy is a chronically debilitating complication of hepatic cirrhosis. The efficacy of rifaximin, a minimally absorbed antibiotic, is well documented in the treatment of acute hepatic encephalopathy, but its efficacy for prevention of the disease has not been established. METHODS: In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we randomly assigned 299 patients who were in remission from recurrent hepatic encephalopathy resulting from chronic liver disease to receive either rifaximin, at a dose of 550 mg twice daily (140 patients), or placebo (159 patients) for 6 months...
March 25, 2010: New England Journal of Medicine