Background: liver cirrhosis is defined as chronic disease of the liver with destruction of the hepatic parenchymal cells. pathologically it is characterized by hepatic parenchymal necrosis and fibrosis of the perivascular connective tissue.
Methods: 50 patients with liver cirrhosis were included in this study and divided into three groups.group 1 included cirrhotic patients with Child-Paugh score class A , group II included cirrhotic patients with Child-Paugh score class B , group III included cirrhotic patients with Child-Paugh score class C . all cases were subjected to estimate biochemical parameters in the form of liver function tests including AST, ALT , serum Bilirubin , serum Albumin , Prothrombin time , INR , HCV Ab and HBS Ag , abdominal ultrasonography with measurement of portal vein diameter (PVD) (mm) and splenic vein diameter (SVD) (mm) and upper GIT endoscopy to detect presence of oesophageal varices (o.v) .In this study we exclude patients with history or clinical evidence at enrollment of variceal bleeding , patients with history or clinical evidence of hepatocellular carcinoma on the basis of ultrasonography , Alpha-fetoprotein levels > 400 microgram / L , patients with history of liver transplantation and
patients with evidence of portal vein thrombosis.
Results: all 50 patients ( 19 males and 31 females ) , of these 50 patients 7 are child A , 19 are child B , and 24 are child C.The mean age (± SD) was 55.54 ± 11.81years ( range 29-90). The results of the present study revealed that there is no relation between PVD and presence of O.V, the mean PVD ± SD of the cirrhotic patients is 1.29±0.23, there is no statistically significant difference between different child scores aacording to presence of O.V and there is no statistically significant difference in PVD between different child scores in cirrhotic patients.
Conclusion: sonographic portal vein parameters cannot be asubstitute for clinical grading and staging of cirrhosis and it cannot be used as adiagnostic indicator in grading liver cirrhosis with accuracy.
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