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Ascitic cholesterol is superior to serum-ascites albumin gradient in the detection of non-portal hypertensive ascites and the diagnosis of mixed ascites.
Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2018 Nov 15;:
Authors: Du L, Zhu S, Lu Z, Xu T, Bai T, Xu D, Wei X, Li J, Xu K, Ye J, Hou X, Song Y
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The diagnostic value of ascitic cholesterol in the differential diagnosis of ascites is controversial.
AIM: To investigate the diagnostic performance of ascitic cholesterol in the differential diagnosis of ascites.
METHODS: Consecutive patients with new-onset ascites were enrolled prospectively. The pertinent data were collected from 629 patients with all forms of ascites.
RESULTS: In the training cohort, determination of the ascitic cholesterol level was a highly effective method of distinguishing non-portal hypertension (NPH) from portal hypertension (PH). At the pre-determined cut-off value of 45 mg/dL, the sensitivity of ascitic cholesterol was superior to the serum-ascites albumin gradient (SAAG) in identifying NPH-related ascites; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.945. In the patients misdiagnosed based on SAAG classification, the diagnostic accuracy of ascitic cholesterol was 69%. The ascitic cholesterol level showed excellent performance in identifying peritoneal lesions in patients with mixed ascites.
CONCLUSION: Ascitic cholesterol is an excellent measure for detecting NPH ascites and for identifying peritoneal lesions in mixed ascites. Thus, this simple and cost-effective measure should be determined in patients with new-onset ascites (www.chictr.org.cn; ChiCTR-DCD-15006907).
PMID: 30443960 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]