Faculty Collaboration Database

Predicting risk in patients with acetaminophen overdose. Expert Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 2013 Aug;7(6):509-12

Date

08/30/2013

Pubmed ID

23984999

Pubmed Central ID

PMC4124995

DOI

10.1586/17474124.2013.814901

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84887840045 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   5 Citations

Abstract

Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose is a very common cause of drug overdose and acute liver failure in the US and Europe. Mechanism-based biomarkers of APAP toxicity have the potential to improve the clinical management of patients with large-dose ingestions of APAP. The current approach to the management of APAP toxicity is limited by imprecise and time-constrained risk assessments and late-stage markers of liver injury. A recent study of 'low-risk' APAP overdose patients who all received treatment with N-acetylcysteine found that cell death biomarkers were more sensitive than alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and APAP concentrations in predicting the development of acute liver injury. The data suggest a potential role for new biomarkers to identify 'low-risk' patients following APAP overdose. However, a practical and ethical consideration that complicates predictive biomarker research in this area is the clinical need to deliver antidote treatment within 10 h of APAP overdose. The treatment effect and time-dependent nature of N-acetylcysteine treatment must be considered in future 'predictive' toxicology studies of APAP-induced liver injury.

Author List

James LP, Gill P, Simpson P

Author

Pippa M. Simpson PhD Adjunct Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Acetaminophen
Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury
Female
HMGB1 Protein
Hospitalization
Humans
Keratin-18
Male
MicroRNAs