The Role of Serum Ornithine Carbamoyl-transferase And Ammonia in Both Cirrhotic Patients with And without Hepatic Encephalopathy

Abstract

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a disturbance of the central nervous system (CNS) function secondary to porto –systemic shunting. It represents a wide spectrum of neuropsychiatric abnormalities seen in patients with liver dysfunction after exclusion of other known neurological diseases Patients with liver diseases frequently develop neurological problems. The most specific is hepatic encephalopathy (HE) Ammonia neurotoxicity is an important component of cerebral dysfunction in patients with liver failure. The serum level of OCT enzyme increases in patients with hepatic disorders including hepatitis, cirrhosis and cancer. And significantly higher in the patients with chronic hepatitis than healthy subjects and a liver-specific marker for the evaluation of hapatocellular damage So this cross section study was conducted on 60 persons from Ain Shams University out-patient’s clinics aiming to evaluate the role of measurement of level of serum Ornithine Carbamoyl Transferase and ammonia level in patients with liver cirrhosis and its use as markers for the presence of hepatic encephalopathy. All patients subjected to routine laboratory investigations and clinical assessment and ultra -sonographic assessment. This study results that these markers can be used as reliable markers for presence of hepatic encephalopathy especially in liver cirrhotic patients, as these markers approved to have 100% specificity and 100 % sensitivity for diagnosing patients of hepatic encephalopathy.