Association of Liver Biomarkers With Jaundice in Patients With Gastrointestinal Complications: An Observational Retrospective Cohort Study.

Introduction: Jaundice is a state of disease in liver function often along with gastrointestinal (GI) complications primarily characterized by hyperbilirubinemia. Other tests regarding liver function are often used besides bilirubin as during any liver complications biomarkers such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT), serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and many other biomarkers even total protein metabolism might get disrupted and get released in the blood. However, no comparison or association among those biomarkers was determined in a cohort.  Method: In this observational retrospective cohort study, we investigated the levels of different liver biomarkers and tried to compare their differences and correlations in jaundice patients with GI complications. We examined nine different biomarkers where, primarily, the jaundice was confirmed through the total bilirubin test and further categorized and analyzed them.

Result: Among the 91 patients of the study cohort after bilirubin (n=91) and conjugated bilirubin (n=88) levels, we found that enhanced globulin (n=79) levels were the most dominant among the cohort followed by unconjugated bilirubin (n=76), albumin (n=72), and total protein (n=71). On the other hand, a high ALP level was determined in the lowest number of the population (n=22). Regarding the category of men and women, similar findings were observed with a slight variation as the number of included female patients was approximately six times higher than that of male patients. In the case of age groups, similar observations were determined with some slight variation, as most of the patients were found to be over 40 years of age.

Conclusion: Besides bilirubin, globulin can be a promising biomarker to diagnose jaundice, especially in patients with GI complications. It may also help to indicate the presence of undiagnosed or unsuspected jaundice in patients with gastrointestinal problems.