ISSN: 2577-4360
Authors: Sharma S*, Prasad Adhikari I and Khadka H
Background: Cirrhosis is a common problem in Nepalese population and is a leading cause of chronic liver disease. Hepatic venous Doppler can be a tool for diagnosis of cirrhosis and to see correlation between waveform changes and severity of cirrhosis. Objective: We aimed to see hepatic waveform and velocity changes with the severity of cirrhosis. Methods: 69 consecutive patients of liver cirrhosis were enrolled in the study. Doppler waveforms were obtained from right hepatic vein in all the cases and classified as triphasic, biphasic or flat. Waveform comparisons were made among patients with differing grades of cirrhosis; Child Pugh score was used to assess severity of cirrhosis. Result: Study involved 69 cirrhotic patients with age ranging from 25 to 74 years; 47(68.1%) were male. There were 27 patients in Child-Pugh grade A, 18 patients in grade B and 24 patients in grade C. We observed that the hepatic venous waveform progressively changed from triphasic to biphasic to flat with advancing grade of cirrhosis. Conclusion: Both maximum forward velocity and mean velocity were significantly higher in cirrhotic patients and this velocity was observed to increase with increasing severity of cirrhosis. Thus alteration in hepatic venous blood flow pattern and velocity can be a useful noninvasive tool for diagnosing patients with cirrhosis.
Keywords: Cirrhosis.
