Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 28, 2015; 21(44): 12620-12627
Published online Nov 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i44.12620
Perihepatic nodes detected by point-of-care ultrasound in acute hepatitis and acute-on-chronic liver disease
I Che Feng, Szu Jen Wang, Ming Jen Sheu, Lok-Beng Koay, Ching Yih Lin, Chung Han Ho, Chi Shu Sun, Hsing Tao Kuo
I Che Feng, Ming Jen Sheu, Lok-Beng Koay, Ching Yih Lin, Chi Shu Sun, Hsing Tao Kuo, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chi Mei Medical Center, Yongkang District, Tainan 710, Taiwan
Szu Jen Wang, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chi Mei Medical Center, Liouying, Tainan 736, Taiwan
Chung Han Ho, Department of Medical Research, Chi Mei Medical Center, Yongkang District, Tainan 710, Taiwan
Hsing Tao Kuo, Department of Senior Citizen Service Management, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan 717, Taiwan
Author contributions: Feng IC and Wang SJ contributed equally for data collection, data analysis, and manuscript writing; Sheu MJ, Koay LB, Lin CY and Sun CS instructed the research; and Ho CH contributed to the data analysis; Kuo HT designed and performed the research.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by Institutional Review Board of the Chi Mei Medical Center.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Data sharing statement: The original anonymous dataset is available on request from the corresponding author at kuohsu2003@yahoo.com.tw.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hsing-Tao Kuo, MD, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chi Mei Medical Center, No. 901, Zhonghua Road, Yongkang District, Tainan 710, Taiwan. kuohsu2003@yahoo.com.tw
Telephone: +886-6-2812811-57111 Fax: +886-6-2750630
Received: April 5, 2015
Peer-review started: April 7, 2015
First decision: June 19, 2015
Revised: July 7, 2015
Accepted: September 2, 2015
Article in press: September 2, 2015
Published online: November 28, 2015
Processing time: 236 Days and 12.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The nodal manifestation in acute hepatitis flare has never been well studied especially in an endemic area of chronic hepatitis B. Our findings encouraged point-of-care ultrasonography to be performed as early as possible for clarifying the etiologies as well as early treatments. Those subjects with viral origin have a higher prevalence of nodal enlargement and larger nodal size as compared with those of non-viral origin. A 5 mm cut-off value for nodal shortest diameter (width) is convenient for defining nodal enlargement.