Pyogenic liver abscess--predicting failure to improve outcome.

m a y 2 0 0 8 , V o l . 6 6 , N o . 5 © 2008 Van Zuiden Communications B.V. All rights reserved. Pyogenic liver abscess (PLA) has been and still is a life-threatening medical emergency. Newer potent antibiotics, improved critical care and advances in imaging have lowered mortality in patients with PLA. The shift from surgery to percutaneous decompression as the first-line treatment is also perceived to lower mortality, albeit the lack of robust comparative data. This underlies Chen et al.’s effort in defining poor prognostic factors in patients with PLA in the hope of advocating more aggressive treatment to further improve outcome.