Critical Flicker Frequency And PHES For The Diagnosis Of Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the morbidity of Minimal HepaticEncephalopathy (MHE) in cirrhosis patients. Compared two psychometric methods oftesting MHE. Then to explore the potential risk factors of MHE based on cirrosis inXinjiang. Methods: We compared two easy-to-perform reproducible bedside. Methods:the critical flicker frequency (CFF) and Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score(PHES) for Identifying Patients with Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy.The studyconducted at the Hepatology Department of First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang MedicalUniversity.121cirosis patients were selected, who were with out overt hepaticencephalopathy (HE) underwent both tests at the same occasion. A CFF＜39Hz andPHES-index＜-4indicates cerebral dysfunction.These patients were test the bloodammonia concentration and liver function grading. Results: Both tests were abnormal in33.9%of the patients and both tests were normal in42.2%of the patients. In more than2/3the two tests were in agreement as CFF classified41.3%and PHES scale classified50.4%of the patients as having MHE. The two tests were well linearly correlated (P＞0.05) and neither test correlated with the liver function, nor with the blood ammoniaconcentration, age, gender, cultural degree, causes of liver disease.Both tests identified alarge fraction of the patients as having MHE (57.85%). The two tests show concordantresults. Muitivariate analysis confirmed that age growing is the risk factor of MHE.Butblood ammonia concentration, gender, cultural degree, causes of liver disease, liverfunction level were not significantly different between MHE patients and patients withoutMHE. Conclusion: There are a large fraction of the patients as having MHE. Both of thetwo reproducible bedside methods are easy-to-perform to identifying patients withMinimal Hepatic Encephalopathy. Logistic muitivariate analysis showed significantdifference in age growing. Other factors were not significantly different between MHE patients and patients without MHE.