Clinical study on a comparison between the compensatory and decompensatory stage of patients with liver cirrhosis / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

Seventy patients with liver cirrhosis hospitalized into our clinic were divided into a compensatory group and a decompensatory group according to three clinical findings, ascites, hepatic encephalopathy and bleeding from gastrointestinal tract. It was suggested that five items of biochemical data for liver function were very important on discriminating these two grops. The five items were cholinesterase, indocyanine green test, albumin, prothrombin time and hematocrit.<BR>We have tried to devise a new staging system for liver cirrhosis by scoring method using the five items. According to the total score calculated from scoring method, clinical stages were divided into four such as stage I, stage II, stage III, and stage IV. It was suggested that cases of stage III had to be treated very carefully.<BR>Liver and spleen volume of patients with liver cirrhosis were calculated by computed tomography. It was suggested that liver volume/spleen volume ratio was very important on discriminating these two groups.