Relation of Hepatic Venous Doppler Sonography and Portal Flowmetry in Determination of Severity of Esophageal Varices in Liver Cirrhosis

Abstract

Cirrhotic patients have hepatic vein waveform abnormalities (HVWA). Both Doppler ultrasonography of hepatic venous wave form (HVWF) and portal Doppler flowmetry (PDF) can non invasively recognize hepatic vein wave form abnormalities and determine severity of esophageal varices. Here we applied cross sectional study and found out the relation between HVWF and PDF and duration of the study from July 2016 to June 2017 in a tertiary Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. 49 purposively taken diagnosed, hospital admitted, cirrhotic patients were included. Face to face interview and reviewing of records were the source of data and it was analyzed by SPSS windows version-12 software programs. At first, local ethical committee approved the study protocol, p<0.05 was statistically significant and 95% was confidence interval. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy is the gold standard for the diagnosis of esophageal varices. Alternative diagnostic investigations would be either HVWF or PDF. HVWF were normal triphasic. Abnormal biphasic and monophasic PDF consisted of the maximum values of portal flow velocity, portal vein flow volume, diameter of the portal vein, and congestion index. Small and large varices were the easiest form of endoscopic grading of esophageal varices. No clinical or echocardiographic feature of right sided heart failure had found in any patient. Both HVWF and PDF can certainly demonstrate the presence of varices but only HVWF detected severity of esophageal varices - monophasic wave (60.47%) in Doppler USG which signified (<0.05) large varices (67.44%) in endoscopy and in biphasic wave (31.53%) in Doppler USG which signified small varices (32.66%) in endoscopy. Patients who developed varices had portal vein diameter (PVD) and congestion index (CI) were higher (p<0.02) and portal vein velocity (PVV) was lower (p<0.05) than whom did not develop varices, but severity of varices could not be detected. Portal vein flow volume (PVFV) did not signify the presence or severity of varices. Moderately positive correlation (correlation co-efficient was 0.0064) was found between Doppler USG of HVWF and esophagogastroduodenoscopic in severity detection varices. In determination of severity of esophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis Hepatic venous Doppler sonography plays more vital role than PDF.