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Case Reports
. 2020 Aug 26;12(8):e10045.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.10045.

Acute Liver Failure in a COVID-19 Patient Without any Preexisting Liver Disease

Dhineshreddy Gurala  1 , Hassan Al Moussawi  2 , Jobin Philipose  2 , Jeffrey R Abergel  2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Acute Liver Failure in a COVID-19 Patient Without any Preexisting Liver Disease

Dhineshreddy Gurala et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

In December 2019, an outbreak of novel coronavirus started in Wuhan, China, which gradually spread to the entire world. The World Health Organization (WHO) on February 11, 2020, officially announced the name for the disease as coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. It is caused by severe respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The WHO declared SARS-CoV-2 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. SARS-CoV-2 mainly causes fever as well as respiratory symptoms such as cough and shortness of breath. Gastrointestinal/hepatic sequelae such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and elevated liver enzymes have been reported as well. Studies and data so far on coronavirus infections from China, Singapore, and other countries showed that liver enzymes elevation could be seen in 20-50% of cases. More severe disease can correlate with the worsening of liver enzymes. However, acute liver failure in patients with COVID-19 has not been described. Herein we report a case of acute liver failure in an elderly patient with COVID-19 infection who did not have a history of preexisting liver disease.

Keywords: acute liver failure; covid 19; cytokine release syndrome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Day 1: portable chest X-ray showing bilateral interstitial infiltrates
Figure 2
Figure 2. Day 4: portable chest X-ray showing worsening bilateral interstitial infiltrates
Figure 3
Figure 3. Day 7: progressive worsening bilateral infiltrates
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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