Liver cirrhosis in patients newly diagnosed with neurological phenotype of Wilson's disease.

Wilson's disease (WD) can manifest itself in different clinical forms, the neurological and hepatic ones being the most common. It is suggested that neurological signs and psychiatric symptoms develop secondary to liver involvement. The aim of this study was to characterize the liver disease in patients newly diagnosed with the neurological form of WD. Treatment-naive patients diagnosed with WD were classified into three phenotypic groups: hepatic, neurological and pre-symptomatic. Liver involvement was ascertained through surrogate markers: abdominal ultrasound and laboratory parameters. In addition, study participants were screened for esophageal varices. Of 53 consecutively diagnosed WD patients, 23 individuals (43.4%) had a predominantly neurological presentation. In this group, cirrhosis was diagnosed in 11 (47.8%) subjects. Esophageal varices were present in all of them. In every patient with neurological WD, there was at least one sign of hepatic disease on ultrasound examination, indicating universal presence of liver involvement. The prevalence of surrogate signs of cirrhosis was similar in patients with the neurological and in those with the hepatic phenotype.