[The predictive value of liver failure-related etiology for clinical outcomes]

To assess the predictors of outcomes for different subtypes of liver failure, and the effectiveness of artificial liver support systems in the treatment of liver failure.

The clinical data of 112 patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)- and non-HBV-related liver failure admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Fifth People's Hospital of Wuxi were collected from January to December 2020. The relevant etiologies of acute, subacute, acute-on-chronic, subacute-on-chronic, chronic subtype liver failure were analyzed. The efficacies of artificial liver support systems in the treatment of various subtypes of liver failure were also compared. The correlation of various indicators was analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis, the risk factors affecting the prognosis of patients with liver failure were analyzed by multivariate Logistic regression equation, and receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC curve) of subjects was plotted to evaluate the predictive value of each risk factor for the prognosis of patients with liver failure.

Among the 112 liver failure patients, 63 were caused by hepatitis B and 49 were caused by non-hepatitis B. The liver failure caused by hepatitis B was 6 times higher than for men than for women, which was higher than that of non-HBV liver failure group (1.33 times). Antithrombin III (AT III) and total bilirubin (TBil) levels of subacute liver failure were higher than those of pre-liver failure in the HBV liver failure group [AT III: (59.33±14.57)% vs. (35.66±20.72)%, TBil (μmol/L): 399.21±112.94 vs. 206.08±126.96, both P < 0.05]. The levels of AT III in patients with pre-liver failure and chronic liver failure in the non-HBV liver failure group were significantly higher than those with acute liver failure [(58.33±15.28)%, (44.00±19.10)% vs. (31.33±7.57)%, both P < 0.05], patients with acute liver failure had significantly lower level of TBil than pre-liver failure (μmol/L: 107.83±49.73 vs. 286.20±128.92, P < 0.05), the TBil levels in patients with subacute and acute-on-chronic liver failure were also significantly higher than that in pre-liver failure group (μmol/L: 417.27±118.60, 373.00±187.00 vs. 286.20±128.92, both P < 0.05). Patients with subacute liver failure, subacute-on-chronic liver failure and chronic liver failure in the non-HBV failure group were significantly longer than those in acute liver failure (days: 36.00±8.31, 27.52±11.71, 27.72±22.71 vs. 11.00±1.41, all P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the case fatality rate of using the artificial liver support system between the HBV failure group and the non-HBV failure group (55.6% vs. 50.0%, P < 0.05), the levels of AT III in the two groups of surviving patients were significantly higher than that of the dead [HBV liver failure group: (36.20±6.26)% vs. (27.33±8.87)%, non-HBV liver failure group: (41.06±4.16)% vs. (28.71±12.35)%, both P < 0.01]. Correlation analysis showed that there was a clear positive correlation between AT III and TBil in the dead patients of HBV liver failure group and the survival and death patients of non-HBV liver failure group (r values were 0.069, 0.341, 0.064, and P values were 0.723, 1.196 and 0.761, respectively); there was a significant inverse correlation between AT III and TBil in the HBV liver failure group (r = -0.105, P = 0.745). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that AT III was an independent risk factor affecting the prognosis of patients with non-HBV liver failure [odd ratio (OR) = 1.023, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was -0.001 to 0.001, P = 0.007]. TBil was an independent risk factor affecting prognosis of patients with HBV liver failure (OR = 1.005, 95%CI was -0.002 to -7.543, P = 0.033). The analysis of ROC curve showed that AT III had a predictive value for the prognosis of patients with non-HBV liver failure, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) = 0.747, the 95%CI was 0.592-0.902, P = 0.009. When the optimal truncation value was 39.5%, its sensitivity and specificity were 83.33% and 56.25%, respectively.

Artificial liver support system treatment of liver failure was difficult to effectively reduce the mortality of patients with end-stage liver failure. In addition to AT III, TBil also could be used as an indicator to assess liver compensatency and predict prognosis in liver failure patients.