TABLE 2.

Therapies associated with reduced risk of cirrhosis complications

Study type	Outcome	Exemplar study	Threats to validity from study design
			Specific	General
Observational studies	Aspirin
	Hepatocellular carcinoma	Simon 2020	Implausible 50% absolute risk reduction, largely non‐cirrhotic cohort	Retrospective cohort	Administrative data	Confounding by indication	Immortal time bias
	Beta‐blockers
	Hepatocellular carcinoma	Wijarnpreecha 94	Implausible 39% relative risk reduction
	Statins
	Variceal bleeding	Mohanty 99	Low event rates (1%–2%)
	Ascites		Unreliable diagnostic codes
	Hepatocellular carcinoma	Simon 100	Implausible 70% absolute risk reduction
			Largely non‐cirrhotic cohort
	Hepatic encephalopathy	Tapper 98	Did not use new‐user design
Randomised trials	Carvedilol
	Variceal bleeding	Sinagra 2014 (meta‐analysis of RCTs) 163	Optimal method of patient selection unknown	None
	Ascites	Villaneuva 2018 91	Highly adherent patients; most with viral untreated hepatitis C
	Statins
	Mortality	Abraldes 97	Small sample (N = 158) powered to detect the difference in bleeding but not mortality	All patients were on Non‐selective Beta‐Blockers