Background: Cirrhosis and portal hypertension influence the hepatic circulation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of liver Doppler ultrasonography parameters in cirrhosis.

Methods: This case-control study involved 118 subjects. All case subjects had biopsy-proven hepatic cirrhosis. The controls were healthy people, case-matched for age and gender. All cases and controls underwent Doppler ultrasonographic evaluation. We compared the area under the ROC curve of each parameter for cases vs. controls using Fisher's exact test, with p <0.5 indicating significance.

Results: The means of the following parameters for case vs. control subjects were: frequency of portal venous flow inversion, portal vein diameter 12.67±2.72 vs. 10.59±1.69, and hepatic arterial resistance index 0.81±0.07 vs. 0.74±0.09. The mean hepatic artery pulsatility index (1.87±0.48 vs. 1.34±0.23), was significantly higher among the case subjects (P=0.001). The maximum flow rate of the portal vein was also significantly lower in the case subjects (16.50±5.59 vs. 36.74±8.74 cm/s, P=0.001). We did not observe significant differences in the means of the hepatic artery maximum flow rate and end-diastolic flow rate. For diagnosing cirrhosis, the application of 24.1 cm/s as the cutoff point for the portal vein maximum flow rate, we obtain an accuracy of 95.45% (91.23%-97.70%, CI=95%), whereas a cutoff point of 1.54 or more for the hepatic artery pulsatility index yields an accuracy of 85.71% (79.48%-90.29%, CI=95%). Utilizing a hepatic arterial resistance index of 0.765 or greater is associated with an accuracy of 71.05% (62.81%-78.11%, CI=95%) in diagnosing cirrhosis.

Conclusions: Doppler ultrasonography and assessment of hepatic artery and portal vein parameters are accurate methods in the diagnosis of cirrhosis.