Objective     To detect the cognitive function of patients with liver cirrhosis caused by chronic hepatitis B using Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuro-psychological Status (RBANS) and to preliminarily study potential factors influencing RBANS score.      Methods      Fifty-six patients who were diagnosed with liver cirrhosis caused by chronic hepatitis B at the first time from Mar 2010 to Feb 2011 and 50 healthy adults were enrolled. RBANS was applied to detect cognitive functions of the patients. The main indices of the hepatic function

renal function and blood ammonia were analyzed for their correlation with RBANS scores.      Results      The differences of the total scores

5 domains scores and 11 subtests scores of RBANS between the patients with liver cirrhosis and the healthy controls were statistically significant (P0.01). Only digit span of the liver cirrhosis patients was higher than that of the healthy controls

but the difference was not significant. Correlation analysis was performed between 5 domains and 12 subtests of RBANS and blood ammonia

hepatic function indices of ALB

TB

DB

ALT and AST and renal function indices of urea nitrogen

creatinine and uric acid. Blood ammonia and ALB were not correlated with the 5 domains and 12 subtests of RBANS

while TB (r=0.571

P=0.042)

DB (r=0.572

P=0.041)

ALT (r=0.775

P=0.002) and AST (r=0.708

P=0.007) were correlated with figure recall. Meanwhile

ALT (r=0.765

P=0.002) and AST (r=0.602

P=0.029) were related to the subtest of list learning. BUN (r=-0.561

P=0.046) and uric acid (r=-0.608

P=0.036) had negative correlation with list recognition

and creatinine was negatively correlated with digit span subtest (r=-0.557

P=0.048) and delayed memory domain (r=-0.684

P=0.010).      Conclusion      The cognitive function of patients with liver cirrhosis caused by chronic hepatitis B may be related to their renal function but not directly related to blood ammonia or hepatic function grade.