Following a prospective clinical study that includes 242 patients, the inventors show that hepatocyte-derived MV levels predicted transplantation-free survival at 6 months in univariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, this association was shown to be independent of Child-Pugh and of MELD score. Thus the present invention relates to a method of predicting the transplantation-free survival time of a patient suffering from cirrhosis comprising determining the level of hepatocyte-derived microvesicles (e.g. by an ELISA assay) in a blood sample obtained from the patient.