In the latest study to address a long-standing controversy, researchers found that beta blocker therapy prevents decompensation in patients with portal hypertension and compensated cirrhosis.
However, the multicenter, double-blind study, presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (abstract LB-6), is unlikely to settle the debate. Protection from decompensation, called decompensation-free survival (DFS), in the trial fell short of statistical