Utility of blood parameters in predicting oesophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis
Cyrin Annie Cyriac, Geeta Achutha Panicker, Sojan George Kunnathuparambil, Steffin Mathai KattoorAbstract
Background:
This study aimed to evaluate the utility of various blood parameters in predicting oesophageal varices in patients with cirrhosis of liver.
Methods:
In this retrospective study, laboratory parameters like platelet count, haemoglobin level, serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) aspartatae aminotransferase (AST) creatinine, albumin, international normalised ratio (INR) and bilirubin were collected from the medical records of patients with cirrhosis who underwent endoscopy for variceal bleeding. The predictors of oesophageal varices from these indices were calculated.
Results:
One hundred and sixty five patients (mean age 57.5 ± 10.7 years; males) were studied. Sixty seven patients (40.6%) had no oesophageal varices. Of the patients with varices (n = 98), 41 (24.8%) had small and 57 (34.5%) had large varices. Compared with patients without oesophageal varices, those with varices had significantly elevated serum aspartate aminotransferase (
Conclusions:
Univariate analysis showed serum bilirubin, serum albumin, haemoglobin, platelet count were statistically significant. However, PT-INR and platelet counts showed high sensitivity and specificity.