الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract O esophageal varices develop as a consequence of portal hypertension in patients with chronic liver disease and are present in approximately 50% of patients with cirrhosis of the liver. The grade of esophageal varices often correlates with the severity of liver disease. Variceal hemorrhage is a major cause of death in patients with cirrhosis, so early diagnosis is essential. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy is the recommended diagnostic tool to diagnose OVs. Endoscopy is considered quite invasive, and with a high cost so it was essential to search for non-invasive alternatives. The aim of our work is to discuss the reliability of VWF marker in predicting OVs in patients with liver cirrhosis. vWF is a large, multimeric glycoprotein, plays a crucial role in primary hemostasis and is an indicator of endothelial activation and development of thrombotic vascular obliteration. This cross sectional study had been conducted on 75 subjects, group A (patients; that included 50 patients with liver cirrhosis) & group B (controls that included 25 healthy subjects). It is shown that group A includes 35(70%) males and 15(30%) females, while group B includes 14(56%) males and 11(44%) females. After an informative consent, all patients were subjected to detailed medical history taking and full clinical examination. In this study, VWF Ag was found to be higher in patients with liver cirrhosis than healthy subjects (p value 0.000). We also found that VWF Ag was statistically significant high in predicting OVs with good sensitivity (82%), specificity (100%), ppv 100% and npv 73% when its cutoff value was at 21ng/ml. |