Usefulness of prognostic scores in patients with acute hepatic failure admitted to an intensive care unit

The aim of this study was to assess the predictive value for mortality of admission and daily APACHE II score, mortality due to multiple organ failure and the Organ Failure Score in patients with acute hepatic failure. We retrospectively studied 15 such patients admitted to an intensive care unit. thirteen patients died (87%) an their admission APACHE II score was 22+/-7.5 compared to 21+/-8.5 in survivors. Daily APACHE II score, mortality due to multiple organ failure and multiple organ failure score had a 100% sensitivity to predict mortality and a 69.2, 76.9 and 76.9% specificity respectively. The predictive accuracies of multiple organ failure and multiple organ failure score were 80% and significantly better than the accuracy of admission APACHE II score (53%). We conclude that these prognostic score can be useful in the assessment of patients with acute hepatic failure.