Determine the Frequency of Portal Vein Thrombosis in Patients with Liver Cirrhosis

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the frequency of portal vein thrombosis in patients with liver cirrhosis. Study Design: Retrospective/Case-control Place and Duration: Medicine and Gastroenterology department of Peshawar Institute of Medical Sciences, Peshawar and DHQ Teaching Hospital, Charsadda for six months duration from August 2020 to January 2021. Methods: Total 100 patients of both genders were presented in this study. Patients detailed demographics age, sex and body mass index were recorded after taking written consent, Patients were aged between 20-75 years. Patients who had liver cirrhosis were included in this study. Complete patients were undergone for Doppler ultrasonography for observation of portal vein thrombosis. Complete data was analyzed by SPSS 24.0 version. Results: Out of 100 patients, 60 (60%) were males and 40 (40%) patients were females. Mean age of the patients were 47.08±7.42 years with mean BMI 28.22±9.61kg/m2. We found that 60 (60%) patients had hepatitis C, 29 (29%) patients had hepatitis B, 7 (7%) had chronic liver disease, 3 (3%) patients had autoimmune hepatitis and 1 (1%) patient had other disease (Wilson’s). Among hundred patients frequency of portal vein thrombosis (PVT) was 15 (15%) and majority of them were males 12 (80%). Conclusion: We concluded that the frequency of portal vein thrombosis was high among patients of liver cirrhosis and mostly patients of hepatitis C were affected. Keywords: Liver cirrhosis, Portal vein, Thrombosis

Significance of altered anticoagulant proteins and D-dimer in cirrhotic portal vein thrombosis: relation to the degree of liver dysfunction

“…It is speculated that the coagulation function of cirrhotic patients was generally suppressed due to hepatic failure, which is usually reflected as decreased coagulants and significantly prolonged PT, and the platelet count was decreased possibly from hypersplenism, increased immune-mediated platelet destruction and/or impaired thrombopoietin synthesis in the liver [9,20,31,32]. All of these abnormalities may prevent thrombus formation; however, this claimed auto-anticoagulation did not guarantee against PVT in cirrhotic individuals, and this confirms the complexity of the pathogenesis of cirrhosis-related PVT [26,27]. There is some evidence suggesting that antithrombotic therapy effectively induces recanalization of the thrombosed portal vein without increasing the risk of bleeding [25].…”

“…Many studies have demonstrated that advanced imaging techniques have yielded 5% to 27% of patients with liver cirrhosis being diagnosed with PVT [2,9,25], and others have reported that prevalence of PVT rang-es from 0.6% to 26% in liver cirrhosis [21,22]. The prevalence of PVT in cirrhosis goes against what was previously recognized as cirrhosis-related auto-anticoagulation [26,27].…”