Psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score for diagnosis of minimal hepatic encephalopathy in China

Table 3 Clinical characteristics of patients with liver cirrhosis

	MHE	Non-MHE		P value
Age (yr)	45.3 ± 8.0	45.9 ± 8.5	t = 0.289	0.774
Education (yr)	8.3 ± 4.4	8.4 ± 2.8	Mann-Whitney U = 348.000	0.956
Ammonia (μmol/L)	74.2 ± 64.2	52.9 ± 24.2	t = 1.086	0.288
Child-Pugh grade			χ2 = 6.943	0.008
Child A	7	17
Child B/C	19	10
Esophageal varices				0.5841
With esophageal varices	15	19
Without esophageal varices	2	1
HBV			χ2 = 0.048	0.827
HBV positive	19	19
HBV negative	7	8
Antiviral therapy				> 0.051
With antiviral therapy	4	4
Without antiviral therapy	15	15

¹By Fisher’s exact test; MHE: Minimal hepatic encephalopathy; HBV: Hepatitis B virus.