الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a severe complication of cirrhosis. Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is a neuropsychiatric and cognitive syndrome caused by liver diseases and accompanying damage to the CNS. Patients with MHE have no recognisable clinical symptoms of HE but have only mild cognitive and psychomotor deficits. Many diagnostic techniques including psychometric tests, electroencephalogram and evoked potentials (EP) have been used to detect MHE. Among these tests, only psychometric tests can be easily done in epidemiological studies. The symbol digit test (SDT) and number connection test part A (NCT-A) were reported to have the advantages of simplicity and reliability The use of non-invasive tests for diagnosis of different clinical conditions has gained a great interest recently. Thus, markers of neuronal or astrocyte cell injury may be valuable for the diagnosis of HE. Neurofilament light chain is a neuron-specific biomarker with prognostic ability in several types of central nervous system injuries. The aim of this study was to assess the role of neurofilament light chains in detection and diagnosis of minimal hepatic encephalopathy in patients with liver cirrhosis. Study approval was taken and informed written consent was taken from all participants with full explanation of study procedure. The current study included 150 participants within three study groups; group I (included 50 cirrhotic patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy), group II (included 50 cirrhotic patients without minimal hepatic encephalopathy) and group III (included 50 healthy volunteers as a control group). The current study was conducted at inpatient and outpatient clinic of Tropical Medicine, Menoufia University Hospital in the period from August 2022 to August 2023. minimal hepatic encephalopathy was diagnosed using the Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (PHES). All patients were subjected to careful history taking, thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigation with measurement of neurofilament light chains was measured by ELISA. Pelvi-abdominal ultrasound for assessment of liver, spleen and degree of ascites if found. The degree of cirrhosis was measured by calculating Child-Pugh score, MELD score and MELD Na score. |