Abstract #3891

Synergy between probiotics and antibiotics for the treatment of chronic hepatic encephalopathy: a longitudinal in vivo 1H MRS study of brain metabolism.

Emmanuelle Flatt¹, Cristina Cudalbu², Olivier Braissant³, Stefanita Mitrea², Dario Sessa⁴, Valérie A. Mc Lin⁴, and Rolf Gruetter⁵

¹LIFMET, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²CIBM, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Service of Biomedecine, CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴Swiss Center for Liver Disease in Children,Department of Pediatrics, HUG, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁵CIBM/LIFMET, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

Chronic hepatic encephalopathy(HE) is a well-accepted complication of chronic liver disease(CLD), and finding the right treatment to reduce HE episodes before liver transplant remains a challenge. Both rifaximin and probiotics are currently used to reduce HE symptoms, but their precise effect on brain metabolites have never been studied. Our aims were first to assess in vivo and longitudinally the effect of the combination of probiotics and rifaximin on a rat model of chronic HE; and second to compare the results obtained to groups of non-treated/rifaximin-only treated rats. ¹H-MRS at high field combined with biochemical and behavioral tests were used.

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