Minimal hepatic encephalopathy is associated to alterations in eye movements

Fecha de publicación: 07/10/2022

Autores de CIPF

• 

  Amparo Urios Lluch

  Autor

• Marta Rosa Hidalgo García

  Autor

• 

  Francisco García García

  Autor

• 

  Vicente Felipo Orts

  Autor

• Carmina Montoliu Felix

  Autor

Participantes ajenos a CIPF

• Casanova-Ferrer, F
• Garcia-Cena, CE
• Gallego, JJ
• Fiorillo, A
• Calvo-Cordoba, A
• Ballester, MP
• Rios, MP
• Durban, L

Grupos de Investigación

• Laboratorio de Neurobiología

  

  Jefe/a de Grupo

  Vicente Felipo Orts

• Unidad de Bioinformática y Bioestadística

  

  Jefe/a de Grupo

  Francisco García García

• Unidad Mixta CIPF-INCLIVA de Deterioro Neurológico

Abstract

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is diagnosed using PHES battery, but other tests are more sensitive, and a simple tool for early MHE detection is required. Assessment of saccadic eye movements is useful for early detection of cognitive alterations in different pathologies. We characterized the alterations in saccadic eye movements in MHE patients, its relationship with cognitive alterations and its utility for MHE diagnosis. One-hundred and eighteen cirrhotic patients (86 without and 32 with MHE) and 35 controls performed PHES and Stroop test and an eye movements test battery by OSCANN system: visual saccades, antisaccades, memory-guided saccades, fixation test and smooth pursuit. We analyzed 177 parameters of eye movements, assessed their diagnostic capacity for MHE, and correlated with cognitive alterations. MHE patients showed alterations in 56 of the 177 variables of eye movements compared to NMHE patients. MHE patients showed longer latencies and worse performance in most eye movements tests, which correlated with mental processing speed and attention impairments. The best correlations found were for antisaccades and memory-guided saccades, and some parameters in these tests could be useful for discriminating MHE and NMHE patients. Eye movements analysis could be a new, rapid, reliable, objective, and reproducible tool for early diagnose MHE.