New Perspectives in Hepatic Encephalopathy (original) (raw)

2012, Clinics in Liver Disease

The terminology of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) remained poorly defined for decades. One major problem was the lack of definition of what constituted acute versus chronic HE. 1,2 Many physicians assumed acute HE was a term used for the fast onset of a bout of alteration in consciousness in patients with underlying cirrhosis. Others thought acute HE was the encephalopathy seen only in patients with acute liver failure. Chronic HE caused even more confusion because it was proposed by some to signify any bout of HE in patients with chronic liver disease, whereas others thought it denoted a protracted (length of time specified) period of loss of consciousness. Numerous other confusions were rampant; at times, articles were being turned down by journals because of inexact terminology when, in fact, standardized terminology had never been established.

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