Transcript Presentation (powerpoint file)

CHRONIC HEPATITIS C IMPAIRS
PSYCHOMOTOR FUNCTIONS OF
INFECTED SUBJECTS
Ilona Savlan, Valentina Liakina, Jonas
Valantinas
Clinic of Gastroenterology, Nephrourology and Surgery
Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Introduction
Hepatic encephalopathy is a
neuropsychiatric complication of liver
cirrhosis the symptoms of which may vary
from imperceptible to severe, invaliding,
and even lethal.
Hepatic encephalopathy subtypes
Diagnosis of minimal hepatic
encephalopathy:
neuropsychological testing
•
•
•
•
•
electroencephalography
P300 evoked potentials
critical flicker frequency test
inhibitory control test
PSE battery (portosystemic
encephalopathy syndrome test battery)
PSE-Syndrome Test
1. Serial dotting test – 10 rows of 10
circles each, patient is timed on how
quickly he/she can draw a dot in the
center of each circle
2. Line drawing test – patient scored on
how quickly and accurately he/she can
draw a continuous line between 2
winding lines
3. Digit symbol test – involves codingsubstitution of symbols for numbers
4. Number connection tests A and B –
known as “connect the dots” in
elementary school
The aim
According to the published data hepatitis C infection causes
abnormalities of cognitive and motor functions which persist
even after successful elimination of the virus.
Aim: To evaluate differences in psychometric tests results
of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients and healthy control.
Patients and methods
42 (22/52.4% men and 20/47.6% women; mean age
43.1±15.3) CHC patients and 12 healthy persons (control
group: 5/41.7% men, 7/58.3% women; mean age 43.6±09.2)
were tested.
All participants were invited to perform these tests:
the number connection tests A and B (NCT-A, NCT-B) and
the digit-symbol (DST) test.
Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 17.0 software.
Differences in the tests results between control and CHC
patients were evaluated with chi-square test.
Results
number connection
tests A, sec.
number connection
tests B, sec.
digit-symbol test, sec.
CHC pts
N=42
42.4±3.7
Control p
N=12
21.4±5.9 < 0,001
96.1±13.1 46.5±8.3 0,001
65.9 ±7.8 34.6±7.1 0,001
We did not find statistically significant correlation between psychometric tests timespan and education, tests results did not depend on participant's gender either. In
the both tested groups alder participants performed tests slower than younger one,
nevertheless, CHC patients tests time-span was longer than in controls, but this
finding was not statistically proved maybe because of insufficient amount of tested
persons.
Conclusions
CHC patients have performed psychometric tests more slowly
than healthy control of the same age and gender distribution.
Those results can be explained by impairment of cognitive and
motor functions in CHC patients.