Evaluation of hepatic venous pulsatility and portal venous velocity with doppler ultrasonography during the puerperium

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate pregnancy-induced changes o f hepatic venous pulsatility and portal venous velocity in the puerperium a nd to determine if these changes disappeared by the end of the puerperium. Methods and material: Healthy normal volunteers (90) were examined on the 2 nd and 7th days of puerperium and between the Gth and 8th weeks postpartum Doppler waveform patterns were obtained in the middle hepatic vein and main portal vein. The hepatic venous pulsatility was named as normal, damped or flat. Results: On the 2nd day postpartum, the hepatic vein pulsatility was shown as normal in 8 (26%), damped in 11 (37%) and flat in 11 (37%) cases. On the 7th day postpartum, 15 (50%) cases had normal, 9 (30%) cases had da mpened, and 6 (20%) cases had still flat pattern. The majority of the cases (60%) displayed normal hepatic venous pulsatility in the 6th and 8th weeks of puerperium, whereas 23% had still dampened and 17%, had flat patterns. There was a trend toward normal pulsatility with increasing puerperal age. The mean portal venous velocity was still higher than the non-pregnant leve ls and did not showed significant alterations during puerperium. Conclusion : This study emphasised that, since pregnancy-induced alterations in hepati c venous pulsatility and portal venous velocity had not completely returned to normal in most cases until the end of the puerperium. these physiologic al changes should be considered whenever hepatic and portal systems are int erpreted with Doppler sonography during the puerperal period. (C) 1999 Else vier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.