Acute liver failure in dogs and cats.

Objective: To define acute liver failure (ALF), review the human and veterinary literature, and discuss the etiologies and current concepts in diagnostic and treatment options for ALF in veterinary and human medicine.

Etiology: In veterinary medicine ALF is most commonly caused by hepatotoxin exposure, infectious agents, inflammatory diseases, trauma, and hypoxic injury.

Diagnosis: A patient may be deemed to be in ALF when there is a progression of acute liver injury with no known previous hepatic disease, the development of hepatic encephalopathy of any grade that occurs within 8 weeks after the onset of hyperbilirubinemia (defined as plasma bilirubin >50 μM/L [>2.

Measurement of intra-abdominal pressure in dogs and cats.

Objective: To review and summarize the human and veterinary literature on intra-abdominal pressure measurement techniques.

Data Sources: Human and veterinary clinical studies, research articles, reviews, and textbooks with no date restrictions with a focus on techniques for intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) measurement and their limitations.

Human Data Synthesis: Human literature has established the intravesicular method as the gold standard for indirect measurement of IAP.