Clinical Observation of Plasma Exchange in the Treatment of Patients with Liver Failure

Objective To observe the efficacy and safety of artificial liver support system-plasma exchange(PE)in treatment of patients with liver failure.Methods 52 Patients with liver failure were randomly divided into treatment group(n=26)and control group(n=26).Conventional liver-protecting therapy was given to all patients in two groups.Additionally,plasma exchange was given to the treatment group simultaneously.Before and after treatment,the clinical symptom,liver function tests,prothrombin activity and changes and effective rates of blood ammonia were examined.Results The rate of clinical symptom improvement in PE treatment group(84.6%)was significantly higher than that in control group(53.85%)(P0.05).After plasma exchange,total serum bilirubin,alanine aminotransferase,aspartase aminotransferase and prothrombin time significantly declined.The improvements of TBIL,PTA and ALT in PE treatment group were significantly better than those in control group(P0.05).The effective rate in PE treatment group was 76.92%,much higher than that(46.15%)in control group(P0.05).The efficacy of early stage and middle stage are both higher than those of late stage in PE treatment group(87.5% and 88.89% vs 57.14%) (P0.05).The most common side effects of PE treatment was plasma allergy but no severe complications were found.Conclusions PE can effectively alleviate clinical symptoms,improve liver function and is an effective and safe treatment for patients with liver failure during early to middle stage ,and can win time for the patients of later period waiting for liver transplantations.