• Ewa Wunsch, Michał Post, Krzysztof Gutkowski, Wojciech Marlicz, Barbara Szymanik, Marek Hartleb, and Piotr Milkiewicz.
• Liver Unit, Pomeranian Medical School, Szczecin, Poland.
• Dig Liver Dis. 2010 Nov 1;42(11):818-21.

BackgroundRecent 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.AimTo analyse the usefulness of CFF in detection of brain dysfunction in patients with PBC.MethodsFifty-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(®).ResultsWhen 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.ConclusionCFF 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.

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