Glucose intolerance after percutaneous ethanol injection therapy (PEI) in liver cirrhosis patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

We studied the effect of percutaneous ethanol injection therapy (PEI) on glucose tolerance in liver cirrhosis patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. All of 10 patients underwent PEI and aspiration biopsy of the tumor on separate day. Two-time oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT), before and after PEI, were performed in all patients. There were no significant changes in blood glucose and insulin chronologically measured on aspiration biopsy and PEI. To detect changes in glucose tolerance, we compared the results of OGTT before PEI with those of OGTT after PEI. On the basis of results of OGTT before PEI, patients were classified to impaired glucose tolerance group (4) and diabetes mellitus group (6). Blood glucose at 180 minutes on OGTT after PEI showed significantly higher value than that of OGTT before PEI, but insulin response was not suppressed. From these experiments we speculate that exaggerated insulin resistance due to injected ethanol may be one of the factors influencing glucose tolerance after PEI.