[Spontaneous peritonitis in the patient with cirrhosis, our experience].

Due to scarce printed information in our country, the incidence regarding spontaneous peritonitis observed during two years in 76 ascites episodes, found in 63 patients with hepatic cirrhosis, is analysed retrospectively. Thirteen patients (17%), showed spontaneous peritonitis and the relationship man-woman was 5 to 1; 70% of the germs found in the ascites fluid was of enteric origin, mainly Escherichia Coli. In three patients the diagnosis was made by both counting the leucocytes and the clinical symptoms, in spite of the negative culture. There were no significant differences in the presence of humoral complications or alterations when patients appeared with sterile ascites and spontaneous peritonitis, but there were differences with the death rate which was 7.9% (5/63), in the former and 38% (5/13), in infected ascites; 80% of the dead patients showed renal deficiency at the end of the evolution and a relationship with the use of aminoglucosides can not be discarded. The search for spontaneous peritonitis in the cirrhotic patient, as a routine, seems to have the same incidence among as, as the one described in the literature.