Pablo MORIKAWA

The First Department of Internal Medicine, Akita University School of Medicine

キーワード : Chronic hepatitis, Liver cirrhosis, Hepatic vein, Doppler

The mean flow velocity (Vmean) and pulsatility index (PI) of the right (RHV), middle (MHV) and left hepatic (LHV) veins were studied by conventional and color Doppler sonography (CDS) in 50 normal control (NC) subjects, 23 patients with chronic hepatitis (CH) , and 45 patients with liver cirrhosis (LC). Comparisons between the NC and LC groups showed that the LC group had significantly higher Vmean values (p The Vmean and PI values of the LHV in chronic hepatitis showed a tendency to mimic the flow patterns of a cirrhotic liver.
Our results suggest that conventional duplex and color Doppler analysis of hepatic venous flow patterns, especially of the LHV, would be useful for complementing the clinical detection of chronic hepatic disease.