Portal blood velocity and portal blood flow in patients with chronic viral hepatitis: relation to histological liver fibrosis.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study represents an attempt to correlate portal hemodynamics in patients with chronic hepatitis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Portal blood velocity and portal blood flow were determined using the duplex Doppler system in 47 patients with chronic viral hepatitis, and findings were compared with the hepatic histological features.

RESULTS

Portal blood velocity decreased with the progress of chronic hepatitis, and closely correlated with the histological degree of liver fibrosis (p < 0.0001). The portal blood velocity in patients who had severe bridging fibrosis was significantly lower than that in the patients who had mild bridging fibrosis. However, the portal blood flow in patients with chronic persistent hepatitis and chronic active hepatitis was comparable with that in the controls, and did not correlated with liver histological findings.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that the portal blood velocity is a more sensitive indicator for assessing portal hemodynamics than portal blood flow in chronic viral hepatitis, and may be a useful test for differentiating chronic hepatitis with severe fibrosis from chronic hepatitis with mild fibrosis.