Abstract: Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a syndrome characterized by acute decompensation, organ failure and high short-term mortality. Common precipitants include bacterial and viral infections, heavy ethanol consumption and surgery. The pathophysiological features of ACLF involve systemic inflammation due to infections, acute liver damage and probably intestinal translocation of bacteria or bacterial products. The focus of clinical management is to identify critical patients earlier and provide multi-organ supportive care at the same time to correct the physiological disturbance in critically ill patients. Therefore, the early and accurate assessment of the prognosis of patients can optimize the treatment plan and improve the survival rate of patients. To date, a series of scoring systems have been established to evaluate the severity of acute-on-chronic liver failure. This paper reviews the recent studies on the prognosis model of ACLF and expounds the advantages and disadvantages of each scoring system in order to judge the patient’s prognosis earlier.

Key words: acute-on-chronic liver failure, prognosis, mortality, CLIF-SOFA score, CLIF-ACLF score