Objective:To identify early potential risk factors for sepsis-associated liver injury and to provide a reference for early clinical identification and intervention.Methods:The clinical data of septic patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) in the Affiliated Changzhou No. 2 People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from March 2020 to April 2023 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients with sepsis were categorized into the liver injury group and the non-liver injury group according to whether liver injury occurred or not, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to explore the risk factors for SALI, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess its predictive effect for SALI, and performed subgroup analyses basing on the cut-off point.Results:Among 530 eligible patients, 403 patients were included. The incidence of liver injury was 39.45% in 159 cases with liver injury and 244 cases without liver injury. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that serum prealbumin, lactate and lactate dehydrogenase were independent risk factors for SALI. ROC curve analysis showed that all single indicators had some predictive value for SALI, the area under the curve was prealbumin (AUC: 0.752, 95% CI: 0.703-0.801), lactate (AUC: 0.679, 95% CI: 0.627-0.732), lactate dehydrogenase (AUC: 0.664, 95% CI: 0.611-0.718), respectively, The AUC for predicting SALI by lactate/prealbumin ratio (L/P) and lactate dehydrogenase/prealbumin ratio were 0.808 (95% CI: 0.766-0.850) and 0.795 (95% CI: 0.750-0.840), respectively, with the best efficacy of L/P in predicting SALI. Subgroup analyses showed that the incidence of liver injury was significantly higher in septic patients with L/P ≥0.23 than that in septic patients with L/P <0.23, at the same time, the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II score, shock probability, and hospital mortality rate also increased accordingly, the differences were all statistically significant (all P < 0.001). Conclusions:L/P is early independent risk factor of SALI, for sepsis patients with L/P≥0.23 should be alerted to the development of liver injuryis.