Correlation of Serum Prolactin Level with Child Pugh Scoring System in Cirrhosis of Liver ” - A One Year Cross Sectional Study In a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To correlate the serum prolactin levels with CHILD PUGH score in cirrhosis of liver. MATERIALS & METHODS: This study was a cross sectional study, conducted in the department of general medicine, DR.Prabhakar Kore hospital, KLE University, Belgaum. The study included 100 adults, aged above 18 years, with chronic liver disease. The data collection for the study was done between 1 January 2018 to 31 st December 2018 for one year . All the patients were subjected to CBC, LFT, RFT, USG Abdomen, Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Serum prolactin assay was done for each patient. CHILD-PUGH score was calculated and compared with the prolactin levels. RESULTS: 102 patients were included in our study based on clinical, biochemical and sonography findings of cirrhosis of liver. The average age in our study was 49.46 ± 12.15 years with most of the patients (57.84%) in the age group off 41-60 years. In the present study, 93% of the patients with cirrhosis were males . Alcohol was the most common etiology for cirrhosis, i.e. 78.43 %. 33 subjects (29.41%) had prolactin values above 40 ng/ml. The observations in our study showed that majority of the subjects, 59 (57.84%) were categorized as Child Pugh class C. 35 subjects (34.31%) fitted into Child Pugh class B and the rest belonged to Child Pugh class A. Prolactin was found to have a highly significant positive correlation with both Child Pugh score and hepatic encephalopathy in our study(p value <0.0001). Similarly, bilirubin, albumin, ascites also had significant positive correlation with prolactin level. X st CONCLUSIONS: We were able to come to the conclusion that prolactin could serve as a valuable indicator of severity of liver disease. Hence, a single parameter like prolactin, which has a significant association with the severity of cirrhosis of liver, can be considered for application in future clinical practice.