Hi i am a nursing student an am wondering? i have a patient that i am doing a composite on. she was admitted with abdominal pains and i am specificlly looking at her AST and ALT values. Her AST was 65 U/L and ALT 59 U/L on admittance. She has had a whipple procedure done for pancreatic cancer previously and on this recent visit had a nephrostomy tube inserted. I dont think this would have caused a large decrease in these values but her AST went down to 30 and her ALT went down to 29 after her 5 day stay in hospital. Could you please give me some insight into why these would have fallen so much after being so high in such a short time. Like i said the only procedure that was done was the tube and her pain medication of MS contin was increased from 30mg up to 60mg upon discharge .
Hello! Thanks for putting your query in Chat Doctor. I am a Gastroenterologist (DM). You haven't mentioned why nephrology tube was placed. Anyhow if there was some infection due to obstruction in urinary tract then after relieving the obstruction the sepsis must have improved that may lead to improvement of AST/and ALT. I hope I have answered your query and this will help you. Remain in touch and get-well soon.