Evaluation of Abdominal Organs in Patients with Sickle Cell Anemia using Ultrasonography

Abstract

The study was descriptive study among a sample consists of 100 SCD patients with different gender and age it was carried out in JafarIbnOuf Pediatrics Hospital, in period from September 2018 to February 2019. The aim of this study was to evaluate abdominal organs (liver, gallbladder, spleen and kidneys) as texture, echogenicity, size and intraluminal contents in Sudanese patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA) by using ultrasonography. The data collected using data collecting sheet which contains patient’s ages, gander, tribe, spleen length, echotexture, liver length, echotexture, gallbladder wall thickness, kidneys length, C/M differentiation and other findings. The results analysis carried out by Excel and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software for the collected variables which revealed that, the incidence of SCA among the selected sample was (62%) males and (38%) female with mean age of 8.5 years, most of patient descended from messeryia tribe in western Sudan. The study revealed that increased liver echogenicity was found in 7% of SCA patients all of them were males, 96% homogenous texture and 4% heterogeneous texture with equally distribution in gender, hepatomegaly was detected in 28% and the result of this study revealed that liver size had direct proportion to age in years. In the spleen the study found 93% were homogenous texture and 7% were heterogeneous texture all of them were males, also found 39% SCA patients with normal spleen size, 22% splenomegaly, 6% shrunken spleen 33% autosplenectomy. The study found there was linear relationship of the SCA patients’ spleen size and age, as the age increased significantly at p= (0.000) the spleen size decreased by0.47 cm starting from 10cm. . Gall bladder in addition to wall thickness the study found intraluminal deposits like stone and sludge; the study reported a progressive age-related increase in the prevalence of gallstones. The study found 87% SCA patients V with normal kidneys, 10% enlarged kidneys, 3% shrunken kidneys, also showed 88% of good C/M differentiation and 12% poor C/M differentiation. From this study the spleen size will be predicted for SCA patients with known age by a new predictive equation. Spleen size =11.59x-0.47x participant age The study revealed varied remarkable changes in abdominal organs sizes, echotexture, intraluminal deposits and wall thickness among the studied patients. The study recommend for further studies with large sample size well be correlate with Doppler studies (resistive index RI) and laboratory investigations in the most affected tribe.