Reduction Of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Of Patients With Liver Cirrhosis And Its Correlation With Serum Albumin

Objective: Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is used to evaluate the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and the cognitive function in cerebrovascular and psychiatric diseases. In this study, we evaluated the value of rCBF and the neuropsychological tests of liver cirrhosis patients without hepatic encephalopathy (HE).Materials and methods: Eight liver cirrhosis patients without overt HE classified Child-Pugh A (LC group) and 4 patients with chronic hepatitis matched age (control group) were examined in this study. SPECT was performed in all patients. In addition, the neuropsychological tests conducted included the mini-mental state examination, Kana-hiroi test, word fluency test, auditory-verbal learning test (AVLT), and the Raven's colored progressive matrices test. The self-rating depression scale and the state-trait anxiety inventory also were completed by the subjects.Results: A significant reduction of the It-angular rCBF was detected in the LC group compared to the control group (50.9 +/- 6.2 ml/100 mg/min vs 40.7 +/- 4.7 ml/100 mg/min; p<0.05). A decreased tendency of rCBF in the frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital-lobe was shown in the LC group compared to control. In addition, a significant positive correlation between rCBF in the frontal-lobe, parietal-lobe and angular, and the serum albumin was shown.Conclusion: A significant reduction of the It-angular rCBF was shown in the LC group and a positive correlation between rCBF and the serum albumin was noted, suggesting that the measurement of changes in rCBF might be useful in detecting the cerebral dysfunction of liver cirrhosis including minimal HE.