Acute liver failure: updated approaches to patient management

Abstract

Acute liver failure (ALF) is a rapidly developing condition with a broad etiologic factor and incompletely understood mechanisms of pathogenesis. Timely identification of the cause and rapid initiation of etiologic treatment, detection, prevention and treatment of complications, and often early liver transplantation (LT) are of crucial importance for prognosis of patients with ALF. Current prognostic models have good accuracy to identify patients with ALF who require urgent LT, but they require improvement. New prognostic markers to select patients for LT are still under development. This review focuses on practical clinical aspects and recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of ALF.