Medicine
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This repository contains the published and unpublished research of the Faculty of Medicine by the staff members of the faculty
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Item Association between road accidents and minimal hepatic encephalopathy in a cohort of Sri Lankan cirrhotic drivers(Wiley Blackwell Scientific Publications, 2014) Subasinghe, S.K.C.E.; Nandamuni, Y.; Ranasinghe, S.; Kodisinghe, K.; Niriella, M.A.; de Silva, A.P.; de Silva, H.J.OBJECTIVE: Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) has no recognizable clinical symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) but has mild cognitive and psychomotor deficits which can interfere with executive decision making and psychomotor speed. It affects driving ability and previous studies in Western countries have demonstrated an association between MHE and increased road accidents. Our objective was to investigate this association in a cohort of Sri Lankan cirrhotic drivers. METHODS: A prospective, case controlled study ongoing study has been conducted in the Gastroenterology Clinic, University Medical Unit, North Colombo Teaching Hospital, Ragama, from August 2013. Patients with cirrhosis of any aetiology, without overt HE, who had been driving any vehicle during the past one month were subjected to 5 standard pencil-paper based psychometric tests used to detect MHE. Road accidents were recorded for both cirrhotic drivers with MHE and controls. Accidents were categorized as major when they resulted in hospitalization of the involved person/s, and minor when there were no serious injuries. RESULTS: Among 55 cirrhotic drivers with MHE [males, median age 53 years (range 30-60)], 7 (12.7%) reported any type of accident compared to 6 (10.9%) among 55 controls [males; median age 51 years (range 30-60)]. 2/55 (3.6%) cases and 2/55 (3.6%) controls reported minor accidents. There were no major accidents in either group. CONCLUSION: Preliminary results of this ongoing study do not indicate an increased frequency of road accidents in a cohort of Sri Lankan cirrhotic drivers with MHEItem Development and validation of Sinhala version of the chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ)(Wiley Blackwell Scientific Publications, 2013) Miththinda, J.K.N.D.; Ranawaka, C.; Pathmeswaran, A.; Dassanayake, A.S.; de Alwis, W.R.S.; Mufeena, M.N.F.; Senanayake, S.M.; Niriella, M.A.; de Silva, A.P.; de Silva, H.J.OBJECTIVE: The Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ) is a validated tool measuring the Health Related Quality of Life among cirrhotics. Aim of this study was to develop and validate a Sinhala version of the CLDQ (sCLDQ) and to test its correlation with the degree of liver dysfunction in a cohort of Sri Lankan patients with cirrhosis. METHODS: A standard translation method was used to develop the sCLDQ. Pilot testing was done with relevant cultural and language adaptations. The final version was self-administered to stable CLD patients, together with the WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) validated Sinhala version, for comparison. sCLDQ was re administered 4 weeks later to test internal consistency and reliability. The validation was assessed by Cronabach’s alpha, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation were used to test correlation with the degree of liver dysfunction. RESULTS: Validation was done with 214 subjects, mean age 55.6 (SD 10.4) years; male 77.6%. Overall Cronabach’s alpha was 0.926. Itra-class correlations varied from 0.431 to 0.912 and all were significant (p 0.000). Retesting was done on a sub-sample of 18 subjects. Test-retest correlation was 0.695 (p 0.008). WHO-BREF was applied on a sub-sample of 48 subjects. There was a significant correlation (Pearson’s r = 0.391; p = 0.004) between sCLDQ and WHOQOL BREF. sCLDQ was significantly associated with MELD (r = −0.13; p = 0.038), MELD Sodium (r = −0.223; p = 0.002), Bilirubin (r = −0.124; p = 0.036), Serum Sodium (r = 0.172; p = 0.009), Serum Albumin (r = 0.201; p = 0.003) and Child grade (f = 3.687; p = 0.027). CONCLUSION: sCLDQ is a reliable and valid tool to assess QoL of Sri Lankan cirrhotics and correlates well with known indices of disease severity.Item Delta-bilirubin: an unrecognised entity(Sri Lanka Medical Association, 1994) Chandrasena, L.G.; de Silva, K.