Comprehensive cost comparison of adult-adult right hepatic lobe living-donor liver transplantation with cadaveric transplantation.
BACKGROUND
An important long-term consideration for living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is the expense compared with cadaveric-liver transplantation. LDLT is a more complex procedure than cadaveric transplantation and the cost of donor evaluation, donor surgery, and postoperative donor care must be included in a cost analysis for LDLT. In this study, we compare the comprehensive cost of LDLT with that of cadaveric-liver transplantation.


METHODS
All costs for medical services provided at our institution were recorded for 24 LDLT and 43 cadaveric recipients with greater than 1 year follow-up transplanted between August 1997 and April 2000. The donor costs include donors evaluated and rejected, donors evaluated and accepted, donor right hepatectomy costs, and donor follow-up costs (365 days postdonation). LDLT and cadaveric recipient costs include medical care 90 days pre-LDLT, recipient transplant costs, and recipient follow-up costs (365 days posttransplant) including retransplantation. Cost is expressed as an arbitrary cost unit (CU) that is a value between $500 to $1,500.


RESULTS
Total LDLT costs (evaluations of rejected donors+evaluations of accepted donors+donor hepatectomy+donor follow-up care for 1 year+pretransplant recipient care [90 days pretransplant]+recipient transplantation+recipient 1-year posttransplant care)= 162.7 CU. Total mean cadaveric transplant costs (pretransplant recipient care [90 days pretransplant]+recipient transplantation [including organ acquisition cost]+recipient 1-year posttransplant care)= 134.5 CU, (P =ns).


CONCLUSIONS
The total comprehensive cost of LDLT is 21% higher than cadaveric transplantation, although this difference is not significant.
Trotter
James F
JF
Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology, University of Colorado, Denver, CO 80262, USA. James.Trotter@uchsc.edu.
Mackenzie
Scott
S
Wachs
Michael
M
Bak
Thomas
T
Steinberg
Tracy
T
Polsky
Patty
P
Kam
Igal
I
Everson
Gregory T
GT
D000328:Adult; D002102:Cadaver; D003120:Colorado; D003363:Cost Control; D017046:Cost Savings; D005260:Female; D017721:Hospital Costs; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods; D019520:Living Donors; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement / Q000191:economics*