title: [Fungal infection in the course of acute liver failure].
abstract: Fungal infection is a common, serious and underestimated complication, which contributes significantly to high mortality in patients with acute liver injury. The features accounting for the incidence of fungal infection include defects of immune response, routine use of H2 antagonists, frequent use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and invasive monitoring. Clinical deterioration characterized by increasing coma grade after initial improvement, increasing prothrombin time, pyrexia unresponsive to antibiotics, renal failure and elevated white cell count make up the clinical picture of the disease which suggests coexistence of fungal infection in acute liver injury. Candida albicans is the principal etiological agent of fungal infection and this pathogen is frequently isolated from the respiratory tract within a week of admission. The mortality among untreated patients with acute liver injury complicated with mycotic infection reaches 100%. The early application of the specific treatment in cases suspected of mycotic infection in patients with liver injury could markedly reduce mortality in this group of patients.
authors.affiliation: III Klinika Pediatrii Instytutu Centrum Zdrowia Matki Polki w Łodzi.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kupś
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wozniakowska-Gesicka
authors.forename: Khalid
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: al-Batool
mesh_terms: D002176:Candida albicans / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D017114:Liver Failure, Acute / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000401:mortality; D009181:Mycoses / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000401:mortality