Analysis of etiology and prognosis of 120 children with pediatric acute liver failure

Objective To investigate the etiology, prognosis and prognostic factors of pediatric acute liver failure(PALF), in order to provide the basis for clinical treatment of PALF. Methods The clinical data of children with PALF hospitalized at Hunan Children′s Hospital from May 2008 to May 2018 were collected, and the causes and prognosis were analyzed.According to the prognosis, the patients were divided into the death group and the survival group, whose biochemical indexes were then compared.After that, the statistical analysis of different data were carried out by using t-test, Wilcoxon test and χ2 test separately. Results In 120 PALF cases, there were 68 males and 52 females, and there were 36 infants, 34 toddlers, 22 preschoolers and 28 school-age children.Twenty cases (16.7%) were caused by sepsis, 19 cases (15.8%) by genetic metabolic diseases, 18 cases (15.0%) by poisoning, 12 cases (10.0%) by viral infection, 6 cases (5.0%) by drugs, 1 case (0.8%) by bile polyp, and 1 case (0.8%) by tumor disease.Besides, the etiology of 43 cases (35.9%) was unknown.Among the cases with known etiologies, genetic metabolic and infectious diseases were the main cause of disease in infants, toddler patients were mostly caused by infectious diseases and drug/toxicants, and drug/toxicants and hereditary metabolic diseases were the dominant cause of disease in school-age children and preschoolers.Mortality rate of children with PALF was 50.0%.Among them, the mortality of Epstein-Barr virus-associated hemophagocytic syndrome, sepsis, Citrin deficiency and Tyrosinemia was higher than that of other diseases.Compared with the survival group, the total bilirubin (TB)[159.00(73.05, 274.00) μmol/L vs.62.75(2.65, 221.75)μmol/L], direct bilirubin(DB)[83.00(41.43, 160.00) μmol/L vs.38.74(10.98, 128.75) μmol/L], prothrombin time (PT)[39.60(24.93, 62.60) s vs.24.65(21.43, 29.83) s], international standardized ratio (INR)[3.40(2.30, 6.74) vs.2.09(1.85, 2.84)], and blood ammonia (NH3) levels [109.50(85.25, 149.75) μmol/L vs.80.00(60.25, 102.75) μmol/L] in the death group were significantly increased, and the diffe-rences were statistically significant(all P<0.05); while the levels of albumin[(28.72±5.88) g/L vs.(33.69±4.96) g/L], alanine aminotransferase (ALT) [586.50(223.25, 1 082.00) U/L vs.1 434.00(615.00, 3 334.50) U/L]and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) [827.50(545.00, 2 024.00) U/L vs.1 663.50(821.00, 4 886.75) U/L]in the death group were significantly decreased, and the differences were statistically significant(all P<0.05). However, the blood glucose and cholesterol levels in both groups had no statistically significant difference. Conclusion The mortality of children with PALF is high, and different age groups have different etiologies.The increase of TB, DB, PT, INR, NH3 and the ratio of hepatic encephalopathy, and the decrease of albumin, AST and ALT suggest poor prognosis. Key words: Child; Acute liver failure; Etiology; Prognosis