There is limited data about the mucosal lesions of portal hypertensive enteropathy (PHE) detected by capsule endoscopy, and there is no scoring system to evaluate their severity. Our aim is to create a reliable scoring system for PHE, and to explore the possible usefulness of using transient elastograhy (TE) in that field. We compared the medical records of 31 patients with liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension with 29 control patients. We found that the mucosal lesions compatible with PHE were significantly more common in cirrhotic patients than in control patients (67.7% vs 6.9%, p<0.001). Cirrhotic patients with high TE score (p = 0.018), high Child-Pugh grade, large esophageal varices (EV), portal hypertensive gastropathy, and history of endoscopic variceal injection sclerotherapy or ligation (EIS/EVL) were significantly associated with PHE. Using our scoring system, we found that patients with higher TE score (p = 0.004), high Child-Pugh score (p = 0.011), larger EV (p = 0.006), and prior EIS/EVL (p = 0.006) were significantly associated with higher PHE score. We concluded that using our scoring system might be helpful in grading PHE severity, and TE might be a new non-invasive method for detecting the presence and severity of PHE in cirrhotic patients.
Keywords: capsule endoscopy; portal hypertensive enteropathy; scoring system; transient elastography.