Liver intensive care: highlights from last week’s conference at King’s

24 September 2025

Last week saw the 5th King’s Liver Intensive Care Conference take place in London – two packed days of discussion, debate and discovery, all focused on improving care for patients with severe liver disease.

What began five years ago as a modest training meeting for nurses has now become one of the most important events in the field, drawing clinicians, researchers and specialists from the UK and worldwide.

Today, it serves several vital purposes: updating colleagues on the latest science and practice, supporting clinicians who don’t work in specialist liver centres, and giving referrers a clear picture of what happens to their patients once they reach King’s. It also provides a rare opportunity for the King’s Liver Intensive Care Unit (LITU) multidisciplinary team to showcase its expertise and outcomes – a source of pride, and a morale boost, for the whole team.

The big themes of 2025

Sessions from this year's programme explored:

Technology at the bedside – how artificial intelligence, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) and new neuro-monitoring tools and extracorporeal therapies could change the way clinicians work, provided they’re used with a clear understanding of their limits.
Transplantation in transition – how new approaches such as living donor transplantation and machine perfusion are reshaping what’s possible, and raising new questions (for example, what does it mean if a graft shows signs of dysfunction after machine perfusion?)
Acute on Chronic Liver Failure – challenging the definitions, debating the role of intensive care in managing this difficult syndrome, and highlighting the new hope that emergency transplantation offers to selected patients.
End-of-life care – how to frame honest discussions with families when treatments are no longer working, and why recognising futility is just as important as fighting for recovery.

From research to reality

A particularly well-received session came from Dr Vish Patel, who explored the enormous challenge of sepsis in cirrhosis – from the sheer scale of the problem, to the shortcomings of current diagnostics, and the promise of research that aims to take discoveries from bench to bedside.

Other talks asked delegates to rethink entrenched views. Should we really be defining ACLF the way we do now? Do traditional risk assessment tools still serve us well in the transplant era of living donors and machine-perfused grafts? And how do we use AI and ultrasound responsibly, without being blinded by the hype?

The message throughout was clear: innovation is changing liver intensive care, but it must be adopted thoughtfully, with evidence, humility and a willingness to challenge dogma.

What delegates took away

More than anything, the organisers hope delegates left with a renewed sense of both responsibility and possibility:

That liver disease is everybody’s business – with mortality on the rise, every clinician, whether in a liver centre or not, needs to be equipped to care for these patients.
That early, excellent care makes all the difference – the first hours and days can shape outcomes more than anything else.
That end-of-life care is part of good care – knowing when to step back and support patients and loved ones through the most difficult decisions is a vital skill.
That continued education and promotion of organ donation is essential for improving outcomes
And finally, that nobody is alone in this work – King’s LITU is always at the other end of the phone for advice, discussion or referral.

Looking ahead

The next conference is planned for 2027, but the impact of this year’s meeting will carry on much longer – in changed practice, new collaborations, and fresh research questions sparked by debate.

Or, as organiser Dr Tasneem Pirani put it:

“The King’s Liver Intensive Care Conference is a one-stop shop for all things liver intensive care. It’s about learning from pioneers, combining evidence-based medicine with real-world experience, and pushing boundaries to improve outcomes for patients.”
– Dr Tasneem Pirani

At its heart, this year’s event reinforced a simple but powerful message: we are passionate about the care we provide to patients with liver disease in intensive care, and we are committed to improving their outcomes – by challenging dogma, embracing innovation, and inspiring clinicians to join our mission.

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