20 The extent to which these symptoms differ from Cetuximab the nondisease population

and the interrelation with other symptom sets in PBC (most specifically fatigue) has not been comprehensively addressed to date. HADS is a validated anxiety and depression measure optimized for use in patients with chronic disease. It has previously been applied in PBC.20 Individual subscales reflecting anxiety and depression comprise seven items, each with a potential score of 0-21. Clinical cutoffs are variable. For the purposes of this study “caseness” for depression or anxiety was defined a score of 11 or greater for the subscale. Analysis was performed using the statistical analysis software Prism 3.0 (GraphPad Prism, San Diego, CA) and SPSS (IBM, Armonk, NY). It was determined whether data were normally distributed. Where data were normally distributed they are presented as mean ± standard deviation and comparison was made between groups using unpaired t tests. Where data were nonnormally distributed, they are presented as median and range and comparisons were made by Mann-Whitney U test. To determine whether the degree of functional impairment experienced by liver

transplant recipients was influenced by the symptoms they experienced, we explored the univariate relationship among functional capacity and the symptom assessment tools of cognitive symptoms, fatigue, and autonomic dysfunction. Univariate analysis was performed by correlations using Spearman and Pearson’s tests, where appropriate for parametric and nonparametric data. To determine selleck whether the relation between perceived QOL and independent symptom domains were independent, a multivariate analysis was performed using the log-rank test. Differences in proportions were determined using chi-square tests. A statistically significant result was considered when P < 0.05. ESS Epworth Sleepiness Scale GWAS genome-wide association study HADS Hospital Anxiety

& Depression Scale OGS Orthostatic Grading Scale PBC primary biliary cirrhosis QOL quality before of life UDCA ursodeoxycholic acid VAS Visual Analogue Scale In all, 2,402 PBC patients participated in the study, making this the largest study of the clinical expression of PBC. A total of 2,353 of the PBC patients returned analyzable measures and were suitable for inclusion in the study. The clinical characteristics of the UK-PBC study cohort has been reported previously, together with data relating to the clinical response to UDCA therapy16 and are summarized in Table 1. The demographic distribution of the PBC population reflected previous reports of disease epidemiology. As reported previously, 80% were treated with UDCA as recommended by treatment guidelines. Of those who had received UDCA for at least a year 79% (63% of the whole patient population) met the Paris criteria for adequate treatment response.