Table 1. Comparison of studies with liver impairment in critical illness.

	Jensen et al. (3)	Kramer et al. (19)
Study design	Clinical cohort study based on a multicentre randomized controlled trial	Prospective, multicenter cohort study with case-control design
Number of Patients included	n=1,096	n=4,146
	(of 1,200 patients)	(of 38,036 consecutive patients)
Inclusion criteria	Medical and surgical intensive care patients	Medical and surgical intensive care patients
	No chronic liver disease	No chronic liver disease
	Age >18	Age >18
		Early hepatic impairment (bilirubin ≥2 mg/dL within 48 h after admission)
Primary endpoint	All-cause mortality within 90 days	Raw and adjusted in-hospital mortality
Biomarkers tested for liver impairment	HA	Bilirubin
	Bilirubin
	INR
	ALP
Results	Quartile-wise hazard ratio for hepatic dysfunction (assessed by HA) for 90-day all-cause mortality after multivariable analysis:	Odds ratio for hepatic dysfunction (Bilirubin > 2mg/dl) for mortality after multiple logistic regression:
	HR 1st Ref	OR 1.86; 95% CI, 1.71–2.03; P<0.001
	HR 2nd 1.3; 95% CI, 0.9–1.8; P=0.14
	HR 3rd 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1–2.2; P=0.02
	HR 4th 1.9; 95% CI, 1.3–2.6; P<0.001
	Quartile-wise hazard ratio for hepatic dysfunction (assessed by bilirubin) for 90-day all-cause mortality after multivariable analysis:
	HR 1st Ref
	HR 2nd 1.2; 95% CI, 0.8–1.6; P=0.4
	HR 3rd 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1–2.1; P=0.01
	HR 4th 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1–2.2; P=0.01

HA, hyaluronic acid; INR, international normalized ratio; ALP, alkaline phosphatase.