The activities of the lysosomal enzymes acid and neutral protease, N-acetylglucosaminidase, and acid phosphatase were measured in the serum of patients with fulminant hepatic failure. Acid protease (cathepsin D) activity was increased about tenfold in patients who died and nearly fourfold in those who survived fulminant hepatic failure after paracetamol overdose, whereas activities were increas...

To document the clinical features and complications of fulminant hepatic failure in childhood, 31 consecutive cases (ofwhom only 9 survived) were reviewed. Of 26 children with acute hepatitis (HbSAg-negative), liver function steadily deteriorated in all but 2, and encephalopathy occurred within 3 weeks of the onset of symptoms in all except 3 of them. Eight of these patients survived, as did on...

10.2217/14750708.5.4.451 © 2 Fulminant hepatic failure (FHF) in children is a rare but often fatal event. Our knowledge of this disorder is limited by the rarity of the disorder at any single center. Initiatives are underway to accumulate the experience of several large centers in a multicenter study of pediatric FHF in children funded by the NIH (the Pediatric Acute Liver Failure Study Group)....

different treatments. Saunders carries out an exchange transfusion routinely if the patient remains in deep coma after 24 hours. In another personal series (from the Hospital Beaujon, Clichy) the results were quite different.1" Between 1952 and 1969 77 patients with severe viral hepatitis were seen, of whom 75 were in coma. Of 56 patients treated conservatively 13 survived, whereas there were n...