P300 in Early Cognitive Impairment in Hepatitis C Virus

Approximately 50% of patients with hepatitis C have complaints of fatigue and cognitive deficits even before the development of significant hepatic impairment.

Assessing the influence of HCV infection on the development of cognitive changes involves many challenges. The frequent presence of confounding factors such as illicit drug use, depression, and cirrhosis has the potential to produce cognitive impairment and therefore obscuring the role of HCV infection as a major actor in the development of cognitive impairment. The presence of brain dysfunction in patients with liver cirrhosis is well known. Zeegen et al. described in 1970, through the use of neuropsychological tests, the occurrence of cognitive changes involving mainly psychomotor speed, attention, and executive function in cirrhotics who did not have clinical criteria for hepatic encephalopathy. This condition is currently called minimal hepatic encephalopathy.