Background: Recent studies suggest that stage-independent symptoms of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) such as chronic fatigue are a consequence of structural and functional abnormalities of the brain. Critical flicker frequency (CFF) is a psychophysiological modality analysing function of cerebral cortex.
Aim: To analyse the usefulness of CFF in detection of brain dysfunction in patients with PBC.
Methods: Fifty-one (37 non-cirrhotic/14 cirrhotic) patients with PBC were included. Control group consisted of 31 matched healthy individuals. Fatigue and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were assessed using Fatigue Impact Scale (FIS) and questionnaire PBC-40. CFF was analysed with HEPAtonorm Analyzer(®).
Results: When compared to healthy controls all patients with PBC showed significantly impaired HRQoL in majority of PBC-40 domains and increased fatigue level in physical domain of FIS. No differences in HRQoL and PBC-40 domains were seen, when patients with and without cirrhosis where compared. CFF analysis showed no difference between healthy controls and patients with PBC. CFF did not correlate with PBC-40 and FIS domains.
Conclusion: CFF fails to determine brain dysfunction in non-encephalopatic patients with PBC, suggesting that functional efficiency of their cerebral cortex remains unaffected and other central mechanisms are responsible for chronic fatigue in these patients.
Copyright © 2010 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.