Serum NO levels predict outcomes of patients with Acute-on-chronic liver failure: Study

Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) patients may be classified as high-risk or low-risk based on serum nitric oxide (NO) levels at the time of hospitalization, says an article published in International Journal of General Medicine.

Acute-on-chronic liver failure is described as acute worsening of liver function in chronic liver disease patients, and it is associated with multiorgan failure and high short-term death rates. Fewer than half of individuals with acute-on-chronic liver failure recover spontaneously, and ACLF is linked with a significant mortality rate in the absence of liver transplantation. Nitric oxide is involved in the pathophysiology of a number of liver illnesses. As a result, Fei Wang and colleagues undertook this investigation to see if blood NO levels might be utilized as a biomarker to predict the severity and prognosis of ACLF patients.

For this study a retrospective cohort of 120 ACLF patients, as well as normal and cirrhotic controls, was studied between January 2018 and September 2020. A commercial ELISA kit was used to quantify blood NO levels, and a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed.

The key findings of this study were:

1. Serum NO levels in ACLF patients were substantially greater than in normal and cirrhotic controls.