Acute Liver Dysfunction Criteria in Critically Ill Children: The PODIUM Consensus Conference

Develop evidence-based criteria for individual organ dysfunction.

Evaluate current evidence and develop contemporary consensus criteria for acute liver dysfunction with associated outcomes in critically ill children.

Electronic searches of PubMed and Embase conducted from January 1992 to January 2020, used medical subject heading terms and text words to characterize acute liver dysfunction and outcomes.

Studies evaluating critically ill children with acute liver dysfunction, assessed screening tools, and outcomes were included. Studies evaluating adults, infants ≤36 weeks gestational age, or animals or were reviews/commentaries, case series with sample size ≤10, or non-English language studies were excluded.

Data were abstracted from each eligible study into a data extraction form along with risk of bias assessment by a task force member.

The systematic review supports criteria for acute liver dysfunction, in the absence of known chronic liver disease, as having onset of symptoms <8 weeks, combined with biochemical evidence of acute liver injury, and liver-based coagulopathy, with hepatic encephalopathy required for an international normalized ratio between 1.5 and 2.0.

Unable to assess acute-on-chronic liver dysfunction, subjective nature of hepatic encephalopathy, relevant articles missed by reviewers.

Proposed criteria identify an infant, child, or adolescent who has reached a clinical threshold where any of the 3 outcomes (alive with native liver, death, or liver transplant) are possible and should prompt an urgent liaison with a recognized pediatric liver transplant center if liver failure is the principal driver of multiple organ dysfunction.