Correlation of Fasting Lipid Profile in Patients With Chronic Liver Disease: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study in Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic liver disease (CLD) is a term used to describe a wide spectrum of disorders, including idiopathic, infectious, genetic, drug-induced, toxin-induced, and autoimmune disorders. The common consequence of chronic damage to the liver is cirrhosis. Cirrhotic patients are further classified by their severity based on the Child-Pugh scoring system. Currently, Child-Pugh scoring consists of ascites, hepatic encephalopathy (HE), prothrombin time, serum albumin level, and total bilirubin level. Lipid panel in CLD is a great marker in determining the severity of CLD. Method and methodology: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at a tertiary care hospital. A sample size of 122 was calculated by using a RaoSoft Digital Sample Size Calculator (RaoSoft, Inc., Seattle, WA) in which we used 5% as a margin of error, 95% as confidence interval (CI), 178 as population size, and response distribution as 50%. Non-complicated CLD patients having age in between 15 and 80 years with no cirrhotic complications including HE, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, hepato-pumonary, or hepato-renal syndrome were included in our study; the rest of the CLD patients were excluded from our study.

Results: The mean age of the study population was 47.09 ± 12.30 years with more than half of the patients lying among the age group 25-50 years. The study population included 76% of males (n=93) and 24% of females (n=29), with a mean age of females higher than the males. Diabetes mellitus (58.19%) was the most frequent comorbidity associated with CLD in subjects included in our study. Parameters of lipid panel were decreased exponentially as the severity of CLD increases from Child score A to C. Total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglyceride (TG) level decreased as the severity increases in our study. The mean model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score increased as per hypothesized as the severity increases from Child score A to Child score C, respectively.

Conclusion: Our study concluded that as the severity of CLD increases from Child class A to Child class C, the lipid panel profile decreases exponentially which proved the idea that had been hypothesized at the beginning of our study.

Keywords: chronic liver disease; correlation; descriptive; lipid panel; tertiary care.