Objective  To investigate the clinical features of post-hepatitic cirrhosis.   Methods  A total of 4 173 in-patients with post-hepatitic cirrhosis who admitted in our institute and Institute of Infectious Disease of our hospital from February to November 2006 were enrolled

Terminal study were carried out till February 2009. All patients were followed up and the data were retrospectively analyzed.   Results  The age of these patients was predominantly from 31 to 60

and their sex ratio was 4.15∶1 for male to female. Among them

3 121 patients (74.79%) were in compensation period

and 1 052 (25.21%) were in decompensation period. And

3 623 cases were determined as hepatitis B

accounting for 86.82%

223 cases as hepatitis C

for 5.34%

and 274 cases suffered from hepatitis B or C superinfecting by other hepatitic viruses

for 6.5%. There were 77.73% patients suffering from gastroesophageal varices (GEV) and 47.48% of them having portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG). The incidence was related with the degree of severity. During hospitalized stay

274 patients (38.43%) of the 713 cases with upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage had esophageal varices (EV)

319 (44.74%) and 101 (14.17%) had PHG hemorrhage and peptic ulcer (PU) hemorrhage. Among the 1 104 HBsAg(+) patients

there were 573 patients dead

accounting for 51.90%

and among 201 HBsAg(-) patients

there were 9 patients dead (4.48%. RR=11.53). Their death was mainly caused by upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (77.15%).   Conclusion  Cirrhosis due to hepatitis B is the dominant category of posthepatitic cirrhosis. Upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage is the main cause of death

which resulting from bleeding of PHG and EV.