Prevalence of peptic ulcers in cirrhotics at the Cocody and Angré University Hospitals in Côte d'Ivoire

Introduction: Cirrhosis, is the consequence of a chronic attack of the liver, is histologically defined as a diffuse process associating mutilating fibrosis (concentric), and regenerative hepatocyte nodules, it has formidable complications (hemorrhagic, cancerous and encephalopathies) essentially. Method: this was a retrospective descriptive study from June 01, 2021 to May 30, 2023, i.e. 2 years. Results: we identified 205 cases of cirrhosis, 36 of which had at least one gastric or duodenal ulcer, i.e. a prevalence of 17.56%. There were 12 women and 24 men, i.e. a sex ratio (M/F) = 2. The mean age was 47.22 years ± 14.7 years with extremes ranging from 28 to 81 years. The etiologies of cirrhosis are (HBV 72.22%, HCV 15%, HBV+HCV 8.33% and chronic alcoholism 5.6%). Civil servants, pensioners, shopkeepers and housewives occupy the first places of complications respectively (25%, 16.7%, 13.9%, 11.1%). Signs of portal hypertension are represented by esophageal varices grade III with a proportion of 61.11% and grade II of 27.8% with or without red signs and at the gastric level, 63.9% of patients had gastropathy of portal hypertension. Ulcerative lesions were single in 80.55%, double in 19.44%, and in order of frequency according to bulbar (44.4%), antral (36.1%), antrobulbar (11.1%) and fundic (8.3%) location. The prognosis was, CHILD C (50%), CHILD B (30.55%) and CHILD A (19.45%). Conclusion: the complications of cirrhosis are formidable, prevention through awareness raising on the avoidance of risky behaviour and universal vaccination against hepatitis B remain the preferred option. Keywords: cirrhosis, Peptic ulcer, Portal hypertension, Cocody University Hospital