Acute liver disease with encephalopathy and renal failure in late pregnancy and the early puerperium -- a study of fourteen patients.

Fourteen patients, aged 18 to 38 years, presented in the last trimester of pregnancy, or immediately post partum, with severe acute hepatic dysfunction. Liver biopsy confirmed the presence of acute fatty liver in six patients; the cause of hepatic dysfunction was presumed viral hepatitis in five patients, pre-eclampsia in two, and gram-negative septicaemia in one. There was one set of twins and the perinatal mortality was 33 per cent; there were three maternal deaths (21 per cent). Two survivors with acute fatty liver subsequently had successful pregnancies without evidence of hepatic dysfunction.