Serum Trace Metals and Enzyme Activity in Patients with Hepatic Encephalopathy

Hepatic encephalopathy is a brain and nervous system disease that occurs as a consequence of liver disorders, these include hepatitis and liver cirrhosis. The aim of this study is to evaluate important serum physiological enzymes activity such as AKP, CPK, LDH, S-GPT and S-GOT in these patients. All patients who were above 12 years, had signs and symptoms of HE either at presentation or during the course of hospital stay were studied. Venous blood samples are to be collected from all participants in fasting conditions. 10 ml of blood are collected and made to clot before serum was separated by centrifuging at 5000 r.p.m for 20 min. This test tube was collected and stored at –40o C prior to analysis of Albumin using kit method on MICROLAB300. Kit method is also used to determine the enzyme activities i.e. AKP, CPK, LDH, S-GOT and S-GPT. 30 patients suffering from hepatic encephalopathy were compared with 30 healthy subjects. Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK) decreases in the patients with hepatic encephalopathy, Alkaline Phosphatase (AKP), Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) and Serum-Glutamine oxaltransaminase (S-GOT) increased significantly in patient group. Metals i.e iron, copper, magnesium and zinc content are also determined. All these metals except copper decreased significantly in patient group. These enzyme activities should be considered as markers under any treatment in these patients and there is a disturbance of metal metabolism in these patients which needs to be corrected before drug therapy is used for treating these patients.