Abstract:
Objective To determine the incidence of osteodystrophy among patients with posthepatic cirrhosis in order to develop effective strategies for prevention and curative treatment of this complex disease.Methods Sixty-five male patients with posthepatic cirrhosis were randomly selected for study.All diagnoses were made by a single hepatopathy professor at our hospital, and patients were excluded from study enrollment based on clinical signs or symptoms of kidney and/or endocrinopathy diseases.Simultaneously, 30 healthy males were selected from among individuals presenting to the hospital for routine physical examinations, and were excluded from enrollment based on presence or suspicion of hepatopathy or kidney and/or endocrinopathy diseases.Venous blood samples were collected from every study participant and used to assess levels of Ca2+, serum parathyroid hormone, calcitonin, and alkaline phosphatase isozyme (ALP3) .Quantitative computed tomography was used to measure the volume of the left radius (at the 1/3 position) and estimate bone mineral density.Results The posthepatic cirrhosis group had significantly lower blood calcium and calcitonin but significantly higher serum parathyroid hormone and bone-derived ALP3 than the healthy group.Conclusion Posthepatic cirrhosis patients in Jilin present with clinical signs of increased bone resorption and decreased bone formation.Osteodystrophy was more common among posthepatic cirrhosis patients than healthy controls, indicating that this patient population should be carefully monitored for development of bone degradation conditions to implement timely treatment and preventative measures.