Comparison of physical parameter measurements between peripheral and portal blood samples in patients with portal hypertension

Abstract

Background: Measuring portal venous pressure is necessary to examine, diagnose, and treat portal hypertension, but current methods are invasive.

Objective: This study aimed to determine whether a noninvasive peripheral blood measurement could be used to estimate portal venous pressure by investigating correlations between certain physical parameter measurements in the peripheral blood with those obtained in portal blood samples.

Methods: A total of 128 peripheral and portal blood samples from patients (n= 128) were analyzed for blood rheology and routine blood parameters.

Results: The mean peripheral and portal whole blood viscosities under the shear rates of 200 s-1 (BV 200 s-1) were 2.97 ± 0.50 mPa.s and 3.06 ± 0.39 mPa.s. The mean peripheral and portal BV 30 s-1 values were 3.96 ± 0.79 mPa.s and 4.16 ± 0.64 mPa.s. We observed strong correlations between peripheral and portal blood measurements of BV 200 s-1 (r2= 0.9649), BV 30 s-1 (r2= 0.9622), BV 5 s-1 (r2= 0.9610), and BV 1 s-1 (r2= 0.9623).

Conclusions: Our results indicate that peripheral blood can be used to evaluate certain parameters in portal blood for use in biofluid mechanics studies, and to provide noninvasive measurement of portal venous pressure.

Keywords: Portal hypertension; biofluid mechanics; peripheral blood; portal blood; portal venous pressure.