Welcome

This Learning Zone has been developed for clinicians and contains relevant content designed to aid your clinical decision-making, such as:

• Videos of experts discussing guidelines for fluid management
• Clinical trial data that support the recommendations
• Emerging uses of albumin in drug delivery and other settings

Dive into our educational materials and enhance your knowledge of albumin – its features, functions and use as fluid therapy in sepsis, septic shock and cirrhosis. Discover how albumin works as a prognostic factor, its value as a colloid for volume replacement, and considerations to make when selecting fluid in sepsis, septic shock and cirrhosis.

Meet the experts

Dr Christian J Wiedermann

Dr Christian J Wiedermann is affiliated with the Institute of Public Health, Medical Decision Making and Health Technology Assessment of the University of Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall, Tyrol, Austria, and associated researcher of the Institute of General Practice and Public Health, College of Health Care Professions Claudiana, Bolzano, Italy. Dr Wiedermann was a University Professor in the field of Internal Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, where he has held previous directorships including Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Vice-Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine. He served as Docent of the Catholic University of Rome at the College for Health Care Professions Claudiana in Bolzano, Italy. He is specialised in internal medicine, clinical pharmacology and critical care medicine. Dr Wiedermann has held several fellowships in Germany, Italy and in the US, including at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda; Cornell University Medical College in New York; and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Research interests include inflammation, coagulation, vascular biology, bioethics, and drug safety in the fields of acute and critical care medicine. He has published almost 400 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals on various clinical and basic research topics including safety and efficacy of plasma-derived protein therapies as well as artificial colloids.

Disclosures

Dr Wiedermann has received fees for speaking and/or consulting from CSL Behring and Biotest.

Professor Alastair O’Brien

Alastair O’Brien is Professor of Hepatology at University College London and Consultant Hepatologist at University College London Hospitals and The Royal Free Hospitals. His research combines laboratory work with large-scale clinical trials and aims to improve outcomes from infection in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. Professor O’Brien’s group discovered that elevated circulating prostaglandin E2 was a key underlying mediator for macrophage dysfunction in cirrhosis (O’Brien et al, Nature Medicine 2014). He was the chief investigator for the ATTIRE trial (Albumin to Prevent Infection in Chronic Liver Failure) published in NEJM (China et al, 2021). He is currently leading the ASEPTIC trial (Primary Antibiotic Prophylaxis using Cotrimoxazole to Prevent Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis in Cirrhosis) throughout the UK.

Disclosures

Professor O’Brien has acted in an advisory capacity for CSL Behring, Mallinckrodt and Novartis.