COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LV MASS ABNORMALITY, EJECTION FRACTION ABNORMALITY AND ABNORMAL E/A RATIO BETWEEN ALCOHOLIC AND NON ALCOHOLIC CIRRHOTICS
Background : In case of ischemic hepatic disease, patients with severe heart failure usually remain asymptomatic, while for patients with congestive hepatopathy, signs of right-sided heart failure could mask hepatic injury. However, changes in hepatic function, that are proven by laboratory tests are significant¬ in predicting the survival of patients with severe heart failure. There is possible considerable changes in the involvement of cardiac morbidity among both alcoholics and non alcoholics. This study evaluates the cardiac profile of cirrhotic individuals with respect to their alcohol consumption. Materials and methods : It is a comparative cross sectional study carried out at Medical department of SSIMS and RC, a tertiary medical institute in central part of the Karnataka. Study randomly selected patients with cirrhosis which comprised of 50 alcoholics and 50 non alcoholics. A normal group of 50 individuals without history of alcohol consumption and cirrhosis were selected for secondary comparison. Non Probability Purposive Sampling Technique is used and data was analyzed using latest SPSS for windows. Results : ECHO revealed that all the patients with alcoholic and non alcoholic cirrhosis had abnormal LVIDd (>56mm). LV mass abnormality was found among 76% of patients with non alcoholic cirrhosis compared to 66% of patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. High Ejection fraction abnormality was found among only 4% of patients with non alcoholic cirrhosis. The abnormal E/A ratio was observed among 8% of patients with non alcoholic cirrhosis compared to 4% of alcoholic cirrhosis patients. Conclusion : 2D Echocardiography showed increase in LAD, LVIDd and LV mass among cirrhotic patients thereby suggesting definitive cardiac involvement. The cardiovascular abnormalities did not show much differences between the alcoholic and non alcoholic patients. all cirrhotic patients irrespective of their aetiology has to undergo a cardiovascular evaluation.