Acute Liver Failure
Acute liver failure is the appearance of severe complications rapidly after the first signs of liver disease (such as jaundice), and indicates that the liver has sustained severe damage (loss of function of 80-90% of liver cells). The complications are hepatic encephalopathy and impaired protein synthesis (as measured by the levels of serum albumin and the prothrombin time in the blood). The 1993 classification defines hyperacute as within 1 week, acute as 8–28 days and subacute as 4–12 weeks. It reflects the fact that the pace of disease evolution strongly influences prognosis. Underlying etiology is the other significant determinant of outcome.
Read more about Acute Liver Failure.
Some articles on acute liver failure:
... to a rock where a vulture (or an eagle) would peck out his liver, which would regenerate overnight ... The liver is the only human internal organ that actually can regenerate itself to a significant extent.) Many ancient peoples of the Near East and Mediterranean areas practiced a type of ... In Plato, and in later physiology, the liver was thought to be the seat of the darkest emotions (specifically wrath, jealousy and greed) which drive men to action ...
... if there were any early indices of poor prognosis in patients with acute liver failure ... Acute liver failure is defined as the onset of encephalopathy (altered mental status) or coagulopathy (altered bleeding tendencies) within 26 weeks of a patient diagnosed with ... adequate treatment which may include liver transplantation ...
... Kingdom it is the most common cause of acute liver failure ... estimated that 150 to 200 deaths and 15 to 20 liver transplants occur as a result of poisoning each year in England and Wales ... visits, 2,600 hospitalizations, and 458 deaths due to acute liver failure per year ...
... There are many causes of acute liver failure aside from acetaminophen toxicity these include viral hepatitis -- including hepatitis A (rarely), hepatitis B, hepatitis C (rarely), hepatitis E (espe ... In patients with non-acetaminophen acute liver failure, the following criteria were identified as being associated with a poor prognosis INR greater than 6 ...
Famous quotes containing the words failure, acute and/or liver:
“Parents are never forgiven for not giving just the right response at the appropriate moment. Or, rather, there are particular times in the adolescent’s or young adult’s life, when a certain response is needed, and this need is not met, and the failure to meet this need is forever remembered, and is never forgiven.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“A life-worshipper’s philosophy is comprehensive.... He is at one moment a positivist and at another a mystic: now haunted by the thought of death ... and now a Dionysian child of nature; now a pessimist and now, with a change of lover or liver or even the weather, an exuberant believer that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)