There are few, if any, metabolic functions of the body in which the liver does not participate. It is not surprising, therefore, that the biochemistry of hepatic failure is an extremely complex one. The liver plays a vital role in carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism and, in addition, because of its unique anatomical position, provides detoxicating mechanisms to inactivate harmful products ...

Many diseases may present as acute hepatic failure in the pediatric age group, including viral hepatitis A and B, adverse drug reactions, both toxic and "hepatitic," and inherited metabolic disorders such as tyrosinemia, alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency, and Wilson's disease. Management is primarily supportive, with care taken to anticipate the known complications of hepatic failure. Few "curativ...

10.2217/14750708.5.4.451 © 2 Fulminant hepatic failure (FHF) in children is a rare but often fatal event. Our knowledge of this disorder is limited by the rarity of the disorder at any single center. Initiatives are underway to accumulate the experience of several large centers in a multicenter study of pediatric FHF in children funded by the NIH (the Pediatric Acute Liver Failure Study Group)....

different treatments. Saunders carries out an exchange transfusion routinely if the patient remains in deep coma after 24 hours. In another personal series (from the Hospital Beaujon, Clichy) the results were quite different.1" Between 1952 and 1969 77 patients with severe viral hepatitis were seen, of whom 75 were in coma. Of 56 patients treated conservatively 13 survived, whereas there were n...

Fulminant hepatic failure is characterized by the development of severe liver injury with impaired synthetic capacity and encephalopathy in patients with previous normal liver or at least well compensated liver disease. The etiology of fulminant hepatic failure refers to a wide variety of causes, of which toxin-induced or viral hepatitis are most common. In spite of specific therapeutic options...