Abstract
There were eleven patients with fulminant hepatitis undergoing plasma exchange therapy (PEx) from 1974 to 1985 in our hospital. The present study was designed to clarify the adequacy and limitation of PEx to fulminant hepatic failure. (1) The patients who suffered from more than four complications were died, and most of them had commonly the combination of acute renal failure, infection and DIC. (2) Bilirubin kinetics can be explained with one compartment model in the short time related to the therapy. These results lead to the assumption formula to determine the exchange-plasma volume necessary to reduce the serum bilirubin concentration to the given level (3) Bilirubin appearance rate advocated by us at the present time might be useful as one of indices to predict the prognosis of the fulminant hepatic failure and control the exchange-plasma volume.
