The prognostic value of peritoneoscopic findings in patients with liver cirrhosis.

This study was conducted on 139 patients with liver cirrhosis with diffuse formation of the nodules on the liver surface demonstrated by peritoneoscopic examination. In all of these patients, the diagnosis had been established more than 5 years ago, and the cumulative survival rates were calculated by the life table method. The relationship between the survival rate and macroscopic findings on the surface of the liver was studied and the following conclusions were drawn. 1) The 5 and 10 year survival rates in patients with cirrhosis with swelling of the right lobe were as high as 71.2 and 53.4% respectively and were significantly higher than the corresponding figures of 30.0 and 12.7% in patients with cirrhosis with right lobe atrophy (pless than0.001). 2) The 5 year survival rate in patients with cirrhosis of the small nodular type with a predominance of nodules with diameters less than 3mm was a high as 70.6%. This was significantly higher than that in patients with cirrhosis of the medium and large nodular type with nodules measuring more than 3mm in diameter where the 5 year survival rate was 36.0% (pless than0.001). 3) The 5 year survival rate in patients with cirrhosis of the narrow stromal type was as high as 61.4%, being significantly higher than that in patients with cirrhosis of the broad and mixed stromal type where the 5 year survival rate was 43.2% (pless than0.05). The observation of the surface pattern of the liver by peritoneoscopy appears to be of great predictive value for the prognosis of liver cirrhosis.