2 METHODS
2.1 Study design
The electronic medical data of
hospitalized patients with alcohol- or HBV-related cirrhosis,
from January 2014 to January 2021,
were reviewed retrospectively. The
exclusion criteria were: (1) other underlying liver diseases (such as
autoimmune liver disease), other viral-related cirrhosis, Wilson’s
disease, primary biliary cirrhosis, and concomitant alcohol abuse and
HBV infection; (2) carcinoma (excluding HCC); and (3) severe cardiac or
pulmonary diseases. Sample size of patients was estimated using an
online software (Power and Sample Size Calculation; HyLown Consulting
LLC, Atlanta, GA, USA).
The ethics review committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of
Guangdong Pharmaceutical University reviewed and approved the study
(ethics review number: 2021-10). The need for patient informed consent
was waived as retrospective anonymized data was used in this study.