Study of etiology and prevalence of esophageal varices in patients of liver cirrhosis

Objective: to determine the cause and prevalence of esophageal varices in patients suffering from liver cirrhosis design: cross-sectional study setting: department of physiology,university of health sciences lahore,gastroenterology department,shaikh zayed hospital,lahore from march 2010 to october 2010. methods: two hundred diagnosed patients of liver cirrhosis were recruited. on the basis of history,clinical examination and biochemical parameters,patients were categorized according to child pugh classification as a,b and c. after that,every patient underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy (egd) for presence and grading of esophageal varices. results: out of 200 patients,79(39.5%) were female and 121(60.5%) were male. the mean±sd age was 46.79±7.59 years and mean±sd duration of disease was 31.18±29.72 months. majority of the patients,182(91%) were hcv+,10(5%) were hbv+,6(3%) were having hcv and hbv coinfection and 2(1%) were alcoholics. on child pugh classifications,89(44.5%) were class a,71(35.5%) were class b and 40(20%) patients were in class c. on endoscopy,141 were having varices and 59 were without varices. out of 141 having varices,30 were with small varices,71 were with medium varices and 40 were having large varices. conclusion: hepatitis c is the most common cause of liver cirrhosis. male are more affected as compared to females. most of the patients are in child pugh class a and the majority of the patients with liver cirrhosis have medium varices.