Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence and predisposing
factors of lower limb deep venous thrombosis (D VT) in cirrhotic patients, and
to evaluate the use of anticoagulation therapy (AT) with low molecular weight
heparin (LMWH) and warfarin in management of DVT in these patients. The
study was conducted on 622 cirrhotic patients from whom the incidence of
lower limb DVT was obtained. Six cirrhotic patients with lower limb DVT
and twenty four cirrhotic controls were fully investigated and compared. The
patients and controls were age, sex and Child-Pugh score matched. All the
patients were assessed according to a protocol including prothrombin time,
prothrombin concentration, international normalized ratio (INR), protein C,
protein S, antithrombin Ill, serum bilirubin, serum albumin, platelet counts,
HBs-Ag and HCV antibody. Results revealed that the prevalence of D VT in
our cirrhotic patients was 0.96%. The use of AT in cirrhotic patients' needs
meticulous follow up for early management of any complications and the
screening for esophageal varices with prophylactic band ligation if risk signs
were present is of great importance.