Despite the availability of potent vaccines, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major public health problem worldwide with approximately 240 million individuals chronically infected, and 20% of those chronically infected patients would progress to life-threatening complications. Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a critical complication of chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and it can develop at any stage in the progression of CHB. Additionally, many noninfectious chronic liver diseases (such as alcoholic cirrhosis, nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases, and autoimmune liver diseases) also could develop to ACLF. In the coming decade, ACLF may be still a common severe liver disease in clinical practice.

Stopping or slowing the progression of chronic liver diseases to ACLF at an early stage should be the most effective way to reduce the morbidity and mortality of ACLF. The studies on molecular pathogenesis, ideal early-warning, and prognostic prediction system of ACLF not only will greatly improve the prevention and early diagnosis but also are very helpful to develop new targets and strategies for treatment.

We invite authors to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will provide the information on the following topics.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• ACLF around the world: epidemiological and clinical aspects
• Molecular mechanisms of ACLF
• Prognostic evaluation of ACLF
• Novel strategies for treating ACLF, including artificial liver support system and stem cell transplantation