Clinical Observation Of QT Interval Prolongation And Theory Of "maternal And Child" In Patients With Liver Cirrhosis

Purpose:QTc interval prolongation is an electrocardiographic abnormality in liver cirrhosis. A retrospective observational study aimed to evaluate the prevalence, risk factors of QTc interval prolongation in Chinese patients with liver cirrhosis.Material and method:A total of 1268 cirrhotic patients who were consecutively admitted to our hospital between January 2011 and June 2014 were included. QTc interval data was collected from the medical charts. QTc interval >440ms was defined as QTc interval prolongation. Continuous data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation and were compared by using the independent sample t test. Categorical data were expressed as frequency(percentage) and were compared by using the Chi-square test. SPSS Statistics version 17.0.0 software was employed to perform all statistical analyses.Results:1. The prevalence of QTc interval prolongation was 38.2%(485/1268).2. In the entire cohort, the risk factors for QTc interval prolongation included an older age, a higher proportion of alcohol abuse and ascites, higher bilirubin, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, prothrombin time(PT), international normalized ratio(INR), Child-Pugh score, and MELD score, and lower red blood cell(RBC), hemoglobin, albumin, alanine aminotransferase, and calcium.3. The in-hospital mortality was not significantly different between patients with and without QTc interval prolongation(2.1% versus 1.3%, P=0.276).4. In the subgroup analyses of patients with hepatitis B virus or alcohol alone related liver cirrhosis, the risk factors included higher bilirubin, creatinine, PT, INR, Child-Pugh score, and MELD score and lower RBC, hemoglobin, and albumin. In the subgroups analyses of patients with acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding or ascites, the risk factors included lower RBC, hemoglobin, and albumin.Conclusion:1. QTc interval prolongation was frequent in liver cirrhosis.2. Although QTc interval prolongation was positively associated with alcohol-related liver cirrhosis and more severe liver dysfunction, it did not significantly influence the in-hospital mortality.3. Myocardial dysfunction is common in patients with cirrhosis, further confirmed that the five elements theory of traditional Chinese medicine "mother and child" theory is scientific.