Doppler study of hepatic vein in cirrhotic patients: Correlation between liver dysfunction and hepatic hemodynamics

Background and AimsTo determine the hepatic vein velocity and spectral wave pattern in patients with Liver cirrhosis and to evaluate the efficacy of hepatic venous Doppler evaluation in diagnosing cirrhosis without biopsy.MethodsThe study was conducted over a period of 18 months from Dec 2017 to June 2019. 60 patients with different stages of hepatic dysfunction and 60 patients with normal liver function were examined with Doppler ultrasound for the velocity and spectral wave pattern of the right hepatic vein.Resultsnbsp Evaluation of hepatic vein wave pattern and velocimetry in normal subjects revealed a Triphasic wave pattern and a mean hepatic vein velocity of 5.5905 cmsec which was significantly less than the velocities observed in patients with hepatic dysfunction. In patients belonging to Child Pugh A category we could see majority of the cases had a triphasic wave pattern and Child Pugh B category showed biphasic wave pattern and Child Pugh C showed a Triphasic wave pattern. Velocimetry also showed an increasing trend with minimum velocity in the Child Pugh A and maximum velocity in Child Pugh C category. Conclusion The results obtained in the study showed reasonable statistical significance to attribute specific wave patterns for different grades of hepatic dysfunction. However an overlap of wave pattern was observed in Child Pugh B Category. Velocimetry of hepatic vein showed that mean hepatic vein velocity increases with increase in hepatic dysfunction with statistically highly significant difference of mean values of mean hepatic vein velocity in the groups Plt0.001.