Frequency of hypoglycaemia and its impact on outcomes in patients with liver cirrhosis: A comprehensive study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55629/pakjpathol.v37i2.1032Abstract
Objective: The study aimed to determine the incidence of hypoglycaemia among patients with liver cirrhosis, and to assess its impact on clinical outcomes such as mortality and in-hospital related complications.
Material and Methods: This study was a hospital-based prospective observational study. After obtaining ethical approval, it was carried out over a 6-month period in the Department of Internal Medicine at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi, Pakistan. Consecutive sampling was used to enrolls 196 patients aged 18 to 65 years with a confirmed diagnosis of liver cirrhosis. Random blood glucose was tested at admission, and hypoglycaemia was defined as a blood glucose level <70 mg/dL. Other clinical variables were defined according to standardized criteria. SPSS 25 software was used for statistical analysis, and p≤0.05 was set as for statistical significance.
Results: The median age was 40.0 (IQR: 27.0–54.3) years, while mean blood glucose was 96.7 (SD: 25.4) mg/dL. Hypoglycaemia occurred in 72 (36.7%), shock in 55 (28.1%), and mortality in 39 (19.9%) patients. There were no differences between the number of patients who experienced shock in the hypo-glycaemic group (20/72, 27.8%) and the number of patients who did not experience shock (35/124, 28.2%) (Fisher's exact test p=1.000). Hypoglycaemia was not statistically significantly associated with gender, diabetes, hypertension or smoking status (all p>0.05).
Conclusion: To sum up, hypoglycaemia is a common metabolic abnormality in patients with liver cirrhosis, but it cannot independently predict short-term adverse in-hospital outcomes.
Keywords: Hepatic, Hypoglycaemia, Liver cirrhosis, Liver failure, Mortality, Shock.
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