Acute-on-chronic liver failure—no longer an entity without definition

Although clinicians instinctively recognise acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), heretofore we have had no way of accurately studying the syndrome, as no definition of this entity existed. A consortium of European centres has finally offered a definition of ACLF and proposed a prognostic index based upon easily obtained features of patients with decompensated cirrhosis.