A Study of Association between Serum Sodium Level and Severity of Liver Cirrhosis Complications at SMS Medical College, Jaipur

Introduction: Chronic liver diseases (CLD) cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Multiple etiological factors lead to a similar clinico-pathological syndrome in CLDs although the rates of progression and clinical course may be different. Globally there had been a 46% increase in CLD mortality in the world between 1980 to 2013. India is one of the focal point of this change. Aim and Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of hyponatremia, to examine whether serum sodium levels correlate with the presence and severity of cirrhotic complications. Material and Methods: This was a Cross sectional Observational Study conducted from May 2019 to August 2020or till sample size is reached, whichever is earlier at Department of General Medicine of SMS Medical College and associated Hospital, Jaipur. The study included the sample size of 110 patients. Result: In this study we included 110 patients. Most of the patients were aged 50-60 years (46.4%) followed by 60-70 years (38.2%). Only 17 (15.4%) subjects were aged below 50 years. Mean age of subjects was 57.29 years. In our study there were male (80%) and only 22 (20%) were females. We found that Alcohol was the most common cause of cirrhosis among study subjects (927%), followed by Hepatitis B (6.4%). Hepatitis C was found in 1 (0.9%) patient as a cause of cirrhosis. In our study most of the patients had Child pugh class B (44.5%) followed by Child Pugh class C (37.3%) and only 20 (18.2%) subjects had Child pugh class A. Conclusion: Dilutional hyponatremia is frequent in cirrhotic patients, found in almost half of the patients. Severe hyponatremia was seen in 27% of cirrhotic patients. Low serum sodium levels in cirrhosis are associated with severe complications of liver cirrhosis like hepatic encephalopathy, hepato-renal syndrome, ascitis, sub-acute bacterial peritonitis, portal hypertension, hepatic hydrothorax and even higher mortality. Hyponatremia can be used as important simple prognostic marker liver cirrhosis and mortality.