A broad spectrum antibiotic therapy as empirical treatment in Healthcare-Associated infections improves survival in cirrhotic patients: a randomized trial Manuela Merli 1 , Cristina Lucidi 1 , Vincenza Di Gregorio 1 , Barbara Lattanzi 1 , Valerio Giannelli 1 , Michela Giusto 1 , Alessio Farcomeni 2 , Giancarlo Ceccarelli 2 , Marco Falcone 1 , Oliviero Riggio 1 , Mario Venditti 2 . 1. Gastroenterology, Department of Clinical Medicine, “Sapienza” University of Rome 2. Department of Public Health and Infectious Disease, “Sapienza” University of Rome Address for correspondence Prof. Manuela Merli, MD II Gastroenterologia, Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica “Sapienza” Università di Roma Viale dell’Università 37, 00185 Roma Phone: +390649972001 Fax: +39064453319 / +39064440806 E-mail: manuela.merli@uniroma1.it Electronic word count text: 4232 words Abbreviations used in this paper: spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP), Multidrug resistant (MDR), Health-care associated (HCA), Model for End-stage liver disease (MELD), urinary tract infections (UTI), clinically documented infections (CDI) Disclosure: The authors have nothing to disclose. No conflict of interest exists.