Chronic liver disease or cirrhosis has been one of most common causes of death in Taiwan. Cirrhosis is the end stage of any chronic liver disease. Portal hypertension is the main consequence of cirrhosis, and is responsible for most of its complications. Pulse diagnosis is a widely used technique in Chinese Medicine to assess patients. According to its related theories, hemodynamic changes can be obtained through finger sensations. Recent researches had more and more revealed its scientific foundations. In this study, we tried to investigate arterial wave changes in portal hypertension using PPVL rats.
Twelve rats were separated into PPVL and Sham group. Rats form PPVL group were ligated by PPVL method. After 30 days, the 12 rats received femoral artery and ileocolic vein catheterization. The arterial and venous pressures were then recorded for 15 minutes long for analyses. The arterial pressure wave was transformed into frequency domain (Cn) by Fourier transformation, and then calculated the phases (Pn). Arterial pressure variability (APV) will be calculated by fast Fourier transformation (FFT) of arterial pressure wave. Heart rate variability (HRV) will be calculated by FFT of heart rate.
Results showed a decrease in C0, but increase in C2, C3, and C4, while P4, P5, and P6 decreased. These indicated the accumulation of blood in middle and lower part of the body. AP-LF decreased and AP-HF increased indicated increased activity of sympathetic tone. Increases of HR-VLF, HR-LF, and the decrease of HR-HF suggested that vagal tone has less effect to the heart.
Furthermore, this study suggested that the differences from arterial signals could be detected from arterial pressure wave in portal hypertensive rats. This could provide a feasible application of using pulse diagnosis to detect portal hypertension.
