Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 21, 2022; 28(47): 6662-6688
Published online Dec 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i47.6662
Acute liver injury in COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit: Narrative review
Effie Polyzogopoulou, Pinelopi Amoiridou, Theodore P Abraham, Ioannis Ventoulis
Effie Polyzogopoulou, Department of Emergency Medicine, Attikon University Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, Athens 12462, Greece
Pinelopi Amoiridou, Department of Intensive Care, AHEPA University Hospital, Thessaloniki 54621, Greece
Theodore P Abraham, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center of Excellence, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94117, United States
Ioannis Ventoulis, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Western Macedonia, Ptolemaida 50200, Greece
Author contributions: Ventoulis I conceived and designed the study; Amoiridou P and Polyzogopoulou E contributed to the data acquisition, analysis and interpretation, drafted the manuscript with input from Abraham TP and Ventoulis I; Polyzogopoulou E contributed to the final layout of the table and figures; Abraham TP performed language editing of the manuscript; Abraham TP and Ventoulis I performed editing and critical revision of the manuscript; Polyzogopoulou E, Amoiridou P, Abraham TP and Ventoulis I approved the final version of the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ioannis Ventoulis, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Western Macedonia, Keptse Area, Ptolemaida 50200, Greece. iventoulis@uowm.gr
Received: September 13, 2022
Peer-review started: September 13, 2022
First decision: October 19, 2022
Revised: November 14, 2022
Accepted: December 5, 2022
Article in press: December 5, 2022
Published online: December 21, 2022
Processing time: 96 Days and 12.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: In recent times, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has substantially altered the hitherto existing medical landscape, causing tremendous perturbations among the global scientific community and imposing a disproportionate burden on healthcare systems worldwide. It soon became apparent that COVID-19 affects multiple organ systems, including the liver. Acute liver injury has been progressively identified as a common, yet often under-recognized, complication of COVID-19, especially in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting, resulting in higher mortality rates. This review attempts to elucidate the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms that contribute to the development of acute liver injury in ICU patients with COVID-19, summarize emergent data and propose therapeutic strategies.