Liver failure and the progress of Li’s artificial liver system

Liver failure progresses quickly with high mortality. Li’s artificial liver systems (Li-ALS), which including Li’s non-bioartificial liver (Li-NBAL), Li’s bioartificial liver (Li-BAL) and Li’s hybrid artificial liver (Li-HAL), play an important role in treatment of liver failure. Li-NBAL integrates various of purification methods such as plasma exchange, plasma perfusion, blood filtration modules and so on, providing a standardized treatment of liver failure, and the Li-HAL system has been used to treat animals with liver failure and achieved good results. Besides, this paper also reviews the research progress of the stem cell transplantation as a promising alternative in treatment of liver failure. Key words: Liver failure; Liver, artificial; Research progress