title: Aetiology and outcome of acute hepatic failure in Greece: experience of two academic hospital centres.
abstract: Introduction: In Western countries, the most frequent aetiology of acute liver failure (ALF) is acetaminophen overdose, while in developing countries viral infections [hepatitis A virus and hepatitis B virus (HBV)] predominate. Aim: To evaluate the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, outcome and prognostic factors of survival of patients with ALF in Greece during the last 6 years. Results: A total of 40 patients, 28 females (70%), with a median age of 37.4+/-18.6 years (range: 15-84) with ALF were studied. HBV infection was the cause in 53% of them (compared with 74% from a previous study reported in the early 1980s), drug toxicity in 15% and undetermined in 13%. The overall survival was 57.5%, including 94% with and 15% without liver transplantation. Forty-five per cent of our patients had emergency liver transplantation in European Centers within a median time of 3.3 days (1-9) from admission. The total bilirubin level at admission and the development of infections were found to be significantly associated with poor outcome. Conclusions: Hepatitis B virus still remains the most important cause of ALF in Greece, but shows a significant decrease as compared with studies in the early 1980s. Almost half of our patients needed emergency liver transplantation and had a very good survival rate. The other 15% of the patients presented spontaneous survival only with intensive medical support.
authors.affiliation: Second Department of Medicine, Medical School of Athens, Hippokration General Hospital, Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Koskinas
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Deutsch
authors.forename: Dimitris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kountouras
authors.forename: Georgia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kostopanagiotou
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Arkadopoulos
authors.forename: Vasilis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Smyrniotis
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rapti
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Manesis
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Archimandritis