Psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score for diagnosis of minimal hepatic encephalopathy in China

Table 1 Correlations between psychometric tests and age and education years

	NCT-A	NCT-B	LTT	SDT	DST
Age	0.510	0.478	0.336	0.322	-0.647
Education	-0.409	-0.355	-0.358	-0.374	0.585

The data are presented as Pearson’s correlation coefficients; P < 0.05; NCT-A: Number connection test-A; NCT-B: Number connection test-B; SDT: Serial dotting test; LTT: Line tracing test; DST: Digit symbol test.

Table 2 Equations for predicting test results from age and education years

Test	Equation	SD
NCT-A	27.861 + 0.548 × age - 0.821 × education	7.581
NCT-B	42.816 + 0.672 × age - 0.971 × education	9.173
SDT	38.937 + 0.113 × age - 0.423 × education	2.408
LTT	33.242 + 0.182 × age - 0.559 × education	3.455
DST	63.020 - 0.672 × age + 1.421 × education	10.608

NCT-A: Number connection test-A; NCT-B: Number connection test-B; SDT: Serial dotting test; LTT: Line tracing test; DST: Digit symbol test; Age and education are expressed in years.

Table 3 Clinical characteristics of patients with liver cirrhosis

	MHE	Non-MHE		P value
Age (yr)	45.3 ± 8.0	45.9 ± 8.5	t = 0.289	0.774
Education (yr)	8.3 ± 4.4	8.4 ± 2.8	Mann-Whitney U = 348.000	0.956
Ammonia (μmol/L)	74.2 ± 64.2	52.9 ± 24.2	t = 1.086	0.288
Child-Pugh grade			χ2 = 6.943	0.008
Child A	7	17
Child B/C	19	10
Esophageal varices				0.5841
With esophageal varices	15	19
Without esophageal varices	2	1
HBV			χ2 = 0.048	0.827
HBV positive	19	19
HBV negative	7	8
Antiviral therapy				> 0.051
With antiviral therapy	4	4
Without antiviral therapy	15	15

¹By Fisher’s exact test; MHE: Minimal hepatic encephalopathy; HBV: Hepatitis B virus.

Table 4 Comparisons between psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score and number connection test-A, number connection test-B, and digit symbol test

		Sensitivity	Specificity	AUC	K value
Both of the two tests were abnormal	NCT-A + NCT-B	0.538	0.963	0.751	0.505
	NCT-A + DST	0.077	1.000	0.538	0.078
	NCT-B + DST	0.154	1.000	0.577	0.156
All of the three tests were abnormal	NCT-A + NCT-B+DST	0.077	1.000	0.538	0.078
At least one of the two tests was abnormal	NCT-A/NCT-B	0.923	0.741	0.832	0.661
	NCT-A/DST	0.769	0.963	0.866	0.735
	NCT-B/DST	0.769	0.741	0.755	0.510
At least one of the three tests was abnormal	NCT-A/NCT-B/DST	0.923	0.741	0.832	0.661
At least two of the three tests were abnormal	NCT-A/NCT-B/DST	0.615	0.963	0.789	0.582

PHES: Psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score; NCT-A: Number connection test-A; NCT-B: Number connection test-B; DST: Digit symbol test; AUC: Area under the curve.