Clinical features of the combined course of liver cirrhosis and atrial fibrillation

Objective – to investigate the clinical features of the combined course of liver cirrhosis of classes A, B, C according to the Child-Pugh scale and atrial fibrillation in comparison with an isolated course of liver cirrhosis. Material and methods. 106 patients were examined, of which 70 patients were with a combined course of liver cirrhosis and permanent AF (group I), 36 patients with an isolated course of liver cirrhosis (group II) and 20 healthy individuals. The diagnosis of liver cirrhosis was established according to the unified clinical protocol of medical care "Liver cirrhosis and its complications", which was approved by the MHU №751 Sep 28, 2012 and AASLD Practice Guidelines. The symptoms of the gastrointestinal tract and the cardiovascular system were assessed. SPSS Statistics and Excel for Windows 2013 software packages were used for statistical analysis. Results. Edematous syndrome was 3.3 times more common in patients with liver cirrhosis and atrial fibrillation than in patients with liver cirrhosis (p = 0.035), in particular in patients of class C group I by 35.6% more often than in group II patients of the same class. The frequency of dyspnea in patients of group I was 7.4 times higher than in patients of group II (p<0.001), including in patients of class A by 52%, class B by 29.6% and class by 35.7%. The frequency of chest pain was higher in group I patients (p = 0.002) than in group II patients. Conclusions. The frequency of gastrointestinal manifestations gradually increases with worsening of the severity of liver cirrhosis according to the Child-Pugh scale in patients of both groups. Manifestations of the cardiovascular system were present mainly in patients of group I and did not depend on the severity of liver cirrhosis.