Acute liver failure

What it is

A rare hepatic disease characterized by acute onset of severe liver dysfunction without evidence of underlying chronic liver disease. Patients present with nonspecific symptoms like jaundice, upper right abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, pruritus, fatigue, and fever. The condition may rapidly progress to hepatic encephalopathy, coagulopathy, and life-threatening multiorgan failure. Liver biopsy typically shows massive hepatic necrosis.

Key facts

Prevalence

1-5 / 10 000 (Europe)

Age of onset

Adolescent, Adult, Childhood, Elderly, Infancy

Inheritance

Not applicable

Classified as

Clinical syndrome

Prevalence figures describe populations, not individuals, and are often estimates from a single study. Where the figure is an incidence or a birth prevalence, it says so.

Signs and symptoms

These ranges are how often a sign appears across everyone diagnosed, not a prediction for one person — most people have some of these and not others. Orphanet also records findings that are specifically absent in this disease; those are in the data but not listed here.

ICD-10 codes

ICD-10 has no distinct code for most rare diseases, so many are filed under the nearest available one. A shared code identifies the group, not this disease — the ORPHAcode above is what identifies it.

Related health topics

Reached through the ICD-10 categories this disease is filed under, so these describe the broader group rather than this disease specifically.

Cross-references