Liver failure is a common clinical syndrome of severe liver disease, with high short-term mortality. Although there is currently no standardized and unified diagnostic criteria for pre-hepatic failure in the world, so the proposal of its concept is of great significance to further improve the prewarning of liver failure. This article reviews the prewarning parameters of the risk of liver failure related from the perspectives of etiologies, clinical laboratory tests and pathogenesis, and thereby aims to help clinicians improve their understanding of early diagnosis of liver failure and promote related research to further reduce the mortality rate of patients with liver failure.