The American College of Gastroenterology recently released a guideline on acute liver failure (Am J Gastroenterol 2023;118[7]:1128-1153). GEN’s Sarah Tilyou spoke with guideline senior author Lafaine Grant, MD, an associate professor of internal medicine in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas, about the impetus for the guideline and what it means to GI practice.
GEN: What prompted the guideline?
Dr. Grant: It’s well recognized that acute liver failure is a devastating disease. But it only occurs in approximately 2,000 patients in the United States annually, and so it’s a rare disease, with any single center seeing only a handful of cases annually. So, there was a need for readily available, evidence-based guidance on how to care for these patients with acute liver failure.