Psychometric methods for diagnosing and monitoring minimal hepatic encephalopathy -current validation level and practical use

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is cerebral dysfunction caused by liver failure and inflicts 30-40% of patients with liver cirrhosis during their disease course. Clinically manifest HE is often preceded by minimal HE (MHE) - a clinically undetectable cognitive disturbance closely associated with loss of quality of life. Accordingly, detecting and treating MHE improve the patients' daily functioning and prevent HE-related hospital admissions. The scope of this review article is to create an overview of the validation level and usage of psychometric tests used to detect MHE: Portosystemic hepatic encephalopathy test, continuous reaction time test, Stroop EncephalApp, animal naming test, critical flicker frequency test, and inhibitory control test. Our work is aimed at the clinician or scientist who is about to decide on which psychometric test would fit best in their clinic, cohort, or study. First, we outline psychometric test validation obstacles and requirements. Then, we systematically approach the literature on each test and select well-conducted studies to answer the following questions: center dot Which percentage of patients with cirrhosis does the test deem as having MHE? center dot Is the test able to predict clinically manifest HE? center dot Is there a well-known test-retest variation and inter-observer variation? center dot Is the test able to detect a treatment response? center dot Is the test result affected by age, educational level, gender, or comorbidities?

Automated summary

Hepatic encephalopathy is a cerebral dysfunction caused by liver failure and has a significant impact on the quality of life of patients with liver cirrhosis. Minimal hepatic encephalopathy, which cannot be clinically detected, can be improved through detection and treatment, thus preventing the development of clinically manifest hepatic encephalopathy. This review provides an overview of the validation level and usage of psychometric tests used to detect minimal hepatic encephalopathy.