Improvements in hepatic serological biomarkers are associated with clinical benefit of intravenous N-acetylcysteine in early stage non-acetaminophen acute liver failure.

ABSTRACT:

Background

N-acetylcysteine (NAC) improves transplant-free survival in early coma grade (I-II) patients with non-acetaminophen induced acute liver failure (ALF). We determined whether the clinical benefit was associated with improvements in hepatic function.

Methods

In a prospective, double blind trial, 173 ALF patients without evidence of acetaminophen overdose were stratified by coma grade (I-II vs. III-IV) and randomly assigned to receive either intravenous NAC or dextrose (placebo) for 72 h, resulting in four patient groups. INR, ALT, bilirubin, creatinine, and AST obtained on admission (day 1) and subsequent days (days 2-4) were used for secondary analysis performed by fitting longitudinal logistic regression models to predict death or transplantation or transplantation

SUBMITTER: Singh S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3663882 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature