The indication and the limitation of plasma exchange in the treatment of hepatic failure

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to investigate the indication and the limitation of plasma exchange in the treatment of hepatic failure. All the patients, whose arterial ketone body ratio was less than 0.2 or whose serum osmolality gap was not normalized by the plasma exchange, were nonsurvivors. Furthermore, there were no survivors among the hepatic failure patients secondary to liver cirrhosis. These results indicate that the plasma exchange for the hepatic failure has its limitation and that the indication of this treatment should be considered very cautiously.