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The Pediatric Acute Liver Failure (PALF) Study is the first multi-center, multi-national collaborative study aimed at identifying, characterizing, and developing management strategies for infants, children, and adolescents who present with acute liver failure.

Because ALF is such a rare disease, a group of university hospitals is collecting information and blood samples to improve understanding and discover better ways of caring for ALF patients. The Pediatric Acute Liver Failure Study Group consists of 19 pediatric centers, with headquarters at the University of Pittsburgh.

Information from the patient's hospital record as well as blood and tissue samples, when available, are used to study this condition. All information obtained is held in strict confidence, and no participation in the study is possible without informed consent from the child's parents or legal guardian. No names are used at any time in this study, so the information is truly confidential. If information about your child's illness is sent to the group, doctors and scientists will have a more complete picture of the disease and its causes so that new treatments for this rare and very serious condition can be found.

This program is funded by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD and the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, MD.

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