ACTIVITIES

International Symposium on Hepatic Encephalopathy. September 2009.

17/09/2009 - 19/09/2009

About the meeting

Liver cirrhosis, hepatitis and other types of liver diseases, both acute and chronic, are one of the main causes of death in western countries. In Spain, more than 12000 persons die every year by these reasons. In the Valencian Community the number of deaths is more than 1.000 persons per year. Liver diseases are responsible for around 4 % of all deaths in western countries. More than 90.000 persons die every year in the European Union as consequence of chronic liver diseases.

Moreover, patients with liver cirrhosis can live many years with intermittent episodes of hepatic encephalopathy, which can lead to coma and death or may be reversible. Between 30 and 50 % of the patients with cirrhosis without clinical symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy present hepatic minimal encephalopathy, with mild cognitive impairment, which can be detected by using psychometric or neurophysiologic tests. This reduces notably his quality of life and his survival. It is estimated that more than 200,000 persons suffer some degree of hepatic encephalopathy in Spain. Therefore this situation is an important clinical, social and economic problem.

This Symposium will join the most outstanding international experts on Hepatic Encephalopathy to discuss the latest advances on the mechanisms leading to the neurological alterations in the disease, its diagnosis at early stages of Hepatic Encephalopathy, the implications in the daily life of the patients and the new therapeutic approaches recently proposed. The mechanisms by which acute liver failure leads to death will be also discussed.