الفهرس 
Liver cirrhosisOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy is a type of chronic cardiac dysfunction
observed in patients with cirrhosis; it is characterized by blunted contractile
responsiveness to stress and/or altered diastolic relaxation with
electrophysiological abnormalities, in the absence of any other known cause of
cardiac disease.
Systolic dysfunction is the result of an impaired sensitivity to sympathetic
activation, leading to a blunted increase in cardiac output and decreased
contractility with exercise, pharmacological stress, and volume challenge.
Diastolic dysfunction in cirrhotic patients has been associated with increased
left ventricular (LV) wall thickness, subendocardial edema, fibrosis and altered
collagen structure, ultimately leading to altered relaxation.
The presence of esophageal varices (EV) due to portal hypertension is a
major concern in cirrhotic patients because of the risk of bleeding and related
high mortality.
The prevalence of esophageal varices (EV) in newly diagnosed cirrhotic
patients is approximately 60–80% and the 1-year rate of first variceal bleeding
is approximately 5% for small EV and 15% for large OV.
Cardiovascular changes in cirrhosis have prognostic implications.
Therefore, the evaluation of subclinical cardiac involvement could contribute to
the early detection of those cirrhotic patients at higher risk of decompensation
and development of complications, allowing better tailoring of follow up.
So, this study aimed to assess the cardiac dysfunction (Left atrial
enlargement and peak S-wave systolic velocities) and use them as
echocardiographic markers of diastolic and systolic dysfunction to correlate
cardiac involvement with endoscopic signs of portal hypertension.
To elucidate our results, this was a study carried out on 60 patients,40 with
the diagnosis of liver cirrhosis and EV (based on clinical, lab, upper endoscopy
and imaging studies), and 20 age and sex apparently healthy volunteers as a
control group during the period from January 2021 to January 2022.