Frequency assessment of osteoporosis in patients of liver cirrhosis

Background: osteoporosis is a chronic disease significantly associated with morbidity and increased risk of fracture. on base of bone mineral density measurements (bmd),the prevalence of osteoporosis among patients with liver cirrhosis has been reported as 38% establishing its common trend in patients of liver cirrhosis. the severity of osteoporosis increases with severity of liver disease. child's class c cirrhosis has more severe osteoporosis than child's class a. liver cirrhosis has multifactorial etiology and most common causes in our country are hepatitis c and hepatitis b. etiology of liver cirrhosis varies widely among different geographical areas of the world. aim: to determine the frequency of osteoporosis in patients of liver cirrhosis. methods: this cross-sectional survey was conducted at department of gastroenterology - hepatology,shaikh zayed hospital lahore for six months. a total of 70 patients of liver cirrhosis were selected using non-probability purposive technique. all patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled and informed consent was taken. bmd of lumbar spine (l1,2,3) and proximal femur (neck and trochanter) was calculated by dexa scan (discovery w s/n 82330). data were entered and analyzed for appropriate descriptive and stratification using spss version 15. results: a total of 70 patients of liver cirrhosis were included in the study among whom 62 (88.6%) were male patients and 8 (11.4%) were female patients. mean age of patients was 45.14 years (sd ±11.04) with age range of 20-60 years. out of 70 patients,22 (31.4%) patients had osteoporosis and 24 (34.3%) had osteopenia. out of 22 patients of osteoporosis,4 (18.1%) patients had child class a,5 (22.7%) had child class b and 13 (59%) belonged to c (p= 0.4). conclusion: osteoporosis is a common complication of liver cirrhosis and it does not correlate with severity of disease. so it is important to diagnose it early and treat.