Prognosis and diagnosis of Reye syndrome by discriminant analysis

Discriminant analysis was used to discriminate between Reye syndrome (RS) patients and non-RS cases based either on conventional blood chemistry data obtained upon admission, or on the activities of hepatic mitochondrial enzymes in biopsy or necropsy tissue. The control group for blood chemistry measurements contained children with upper respiratory tract infections, varicella, etc. who did not develop RS, as well as healthy children. Subjects with no liver disorder (e.g., accidental death, sudden infant death, etc.) or with non-RS liver disorders were used as controls for hepatic enzyme studies. Hepatic damage indicators (aspartate aminotransferase, AST; alanine aminotransferase, ALT; and bilirubin) correctly classified 86-96% of non-RS cases and 61-71% of RS. By contrast, AST and ALT had little prognostic value (63% overall correct). Ammonia effectively classified favorable outcome cases (95% correct) but not unfavorable (14% correct). However, when ammonia was included with stage of coma information 88% of the favorable and 85% of the unfavorable outcome cases were correctly classified. Discriminant analysis of hepatic enzymes (glutamate dehydrogenase and monoamine oxidase activity) for a RS and a non-RS group correctly classified 80% of non-RS and 95% of RS specimens. The function was suitable for the direct evaluation of RS-like mitochondrial enzyme changes in rat liver.