Copyright
©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 27, 2026; 18(2): 116828
Published online Feb 27, 2026. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v18.i2.116828
Published online Feb 27, 2026. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v18.i2.116828
Should the routine use of the 6-minute walk test be implemented in liver disease assessment: Not so fast
Marco E Diaz-Cordova, Ishani Sharma, William Pascal, Kenji Okumura, Department of Surgery, Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
Author contributions: Diaz-Cordova ME, Sharma I, and Pascal W contributed with writing, and literature review; Diaz-Cordova ME also edited and revised final versions of the manuscript; Okumura K provided writing, senior editing, and final revisions of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the research, authorship, and/or publication of this work.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kenji Okumura, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College, 100 Woods Road, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States. kenjiokumura@kyudai.jp
Received: November 21, 2025
Revised: December 9, 2025
Accepted: January 4, 2026
Published online: February 27, 2026
Processing time: 83 Days and 15.8 Hours
Revised: December 9, 2025
Accepted: January 4, 2026
Published online: February 27, 2026
Processing time: 83 Days and 15.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: The 6-minute walk test is a simple, low-cost, and reproducible assessment that has been shown to serve as a clinical predictor of survival, mortality, and other outcomes in individuals with end-stage liver disease. However, prior to its routine clinical implementation, additional research is needed to standardize testing protocols and to define the optimal timing for both administration and repeat assessment. Furthermore, the test should be interpreted as an adjunct measure of overall functional capacity and health status, rather than as a standalone indicator of hepatic function.