Background: Liver cirrhosis is the clinical end stage of different entities of chronic liver diseases when the patient encounters high morbidity and mortality rates, which are related to the severity of the cirrhosis



Objectives: To investigate the role of serum copeptin level as a predictor of the severity of liver cirrhosis and its complications in elderly Egyptian patients.



Subjects and methods: This case-control study was conducted on elderly cases with liver cirrhosis at the ICU, inpatient and outpatient clinics of the internal medicine department, Zagazig University Hospitals. The study included 66 cases, Group I: 11 healthy volunteers as a control group. Group II: included 11 compensated cirrhotic cases. Group III: 11 decompensated cirrhotic cases without complications. Group IV: 33 decompensated cirrhotic patients with complications subdivided into IV (a) included 11 patients with gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding due to portal hypertension. IV (b) included 11 patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP). (c) included 11 cases of Hepato-renal Syndrome (HRS). Serum copeptin was assessed in all cases.

Results: Our results found that a high significant differences between studied groups regarding copeptin levels between groups II and, IV(a), IV(b) and IV(c). Also, the same between groups III, IV(a), IV(b) and IV(c) (p<0.05). There were significant differences between Group II and Group III (p<0.05). But there are non-significant differences between groups I and II, III and between groups IV(b) and IV(c) (p>0.05)

Conclusion: For evaluating the degree of liver cirrhosis and its implications, serum copeptin is a promising prospective predictive diagnostic tool