Relationship between hepatic injury status and event related potentials

Visual, auditory and somatosensory event related potentials were recorded from 58 patients with chronic nonalcoholic liver disease. The results of this study indicate that a significant, although somewhat modest, amount of variance on brainstem auditory, pattern visual and somatosensory ERP latency can be predicted by routinely obtained liver functional measures, albumin, prothrombin time, fasting ammonia level, globulin and especially indocyanine green clearance. Moreover, these associations are present in persons who are not overtly encephalopathic, underscoring the sensitivity of neurophysiologic measurement for detecting hepatic encephalopathy concomitant to only moderate severity of hepatic injury.