Natural history of covert hepatic encephalopathy: An observational study of 366 cirrhotic patients

Table 1 Comparison of baseline characteristics between cirrhotic patients with and without covert hepatic encephalopathy (unimpaired)

	Unimpaired, n =235	CHE, n = 131	P value
Sex, female/male	67/168	32/99	0.40
Age in yr	46.3 ± 8.9	48.8 ± 7.8	0.009
Cause
HBV-associated	180 (76.7)	94 (71.8)	0.31
HCV-associated	8 (3.4)	4 (3.1)	0.86
Alcohol-associated	25 (10.6)	19 (14.5)	0.28
Others	22 (9.4)	14 (10.7)	0.68
Level of education
Primary school	34 (14.5)	45 (34.4)	< 0.001
Junior high school	99 (42.1)	52 (39.7)	0.65
Senior high school	70 (29.8)	33 (25.2)	0.35
College degree or above	32 (13.6)	1 (0.8)	< 0.001
Creatinine	69.0 ± 16.3	71.3 ± 28.0	0.32
Venous ammonia	44.3 ± 4.2	57.9 ± 8.9	< 0.001
Albumin	33.5 ± 7.7	26.2 ± 6.1	< 0.001
High total bilirubin	17.3 ± 12.3	17.0 ± 9.1	0.76
Platelets, 109/L	102.6 ± 99.7	98.5 ± 96.7	0.70
International normalization ratio	1.14 ± 0.12	1.14 ± 0.15	0.99
Ascites, none/mild/severe	138/65/32	19/30/82	< 0.001
History of OHE	12 (5.1)	54 (41.2)	< 0.001
CPC, N, A/B/C	118/111/6	40/74/17	< 0.001
MELD score	14.6 ± 2.9	16.9 ± 6.0	0.02

Data are presented as n, n (%) or mean ± SD. CHE: Covert hepatic encephalopathy; CPC: Child-Pugh classification; HBV: Hepatitis B virus; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; MELD: Model for end-stage liver disease; OHE: Overt hepatic encephalopathy.