Treatment of portal systemic encephalopathy: standard and new treatments

The management of hepatic encephalopathy should be considered accordingly with the precipitating factor and the type of encephalopathy. Ideally the therapeutic approach must be useful for both acute and chronic forms of encephalopathy. Current treatment of hepatic encephalopathy consists of certain well-established measures attempting to identify and treat the precipitating factors, and to reduce the intestinal nitrogenous compounds formation and absorption by dietary restriction or bowel-cleansing with catartics or antibiotics such as neomycin, metronidazol, etc. This review describes briefly several therapeutic modalities.