Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic performance of simplified animal nomenclature test (S-ANT) in predicting minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) in patients with liver cirrhosis (LC). Methods 142 patients with LC were encountered in the Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, Bengbu Medical College and the Department of Hepatology, Second People's Hospital, Fuyang, Anhui province between July 2020 and June 2021, and the number connection test-A (NCT-A), digit symbol test(DST), simplified animal naming test(ANT) were conducted for the diagnosis of MHE. The multivariate Logistic regression analysis was performed, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn, and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the diagnostic performance of S-ANT for MHE. Results Among the 142 patients with LC, the MHE was found in 39 cases (27.5%); there were significant differences with respect to the ages, education periods and the percentage of alcoholic liver disease between patients with and without MHE(P<0.05);serum ammonia level in patients with MHE was 61.0(36.0, 94.0)μmol/L, much higher than [(47.1(33.0, 69.0)μmol/L, P<0.05] in patients without MHE; the NCT-A in patients with MHE lasted for (93.5±38.9)s, much longer than [(61.5±23.7)s, P<0.05], and the DST, ANT and S-ANT scores were (22.7±5.7), (12.5±1.5) and (14.4±2.0), all significantly higher than [(36.9±10.4), (17.6±3.9) and (18.7±3.8), respectively, P<0.05] in patients without MHE; the multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that the age(OR=1.07, 95%CI 1.02-1.14, P<0.05), education period (OR=0.78, 95%CI 0.65-0.94, P<0.05) and serum ammonia level (OR=1.02, 95%CI 1.00-1.04, P<0.05) were all the independent factors for the occurrence of MHE; the AUC was 0.781, with the sensitivity of 71.8％ and the specificity of 84.5％, when the cut-off-value of S-ANT less than 16 was applied to predict the MHE in patients with LC. Conclusion The S-ANT is a good diagnostic tool for the assessment of MHE in patients with LC, which might be applied to screen and early find the suspicious patients.

Key words: Liver cirrhosis, Minimal hepatic encephalopathy, Simplified animal naming test, Diagnosis