title: Trends and experiences in liver retransplantation over 15 years.
abstract: Compared to primary liver transplantation (LT), the inferior results in the outcome of liver retransplantation (re-LT) continue to be a major challenge. The purpose of this study was to analyze changes in and outcomes of re-LT over a period of 15 years at the Charité Virchow Clinic. Between 1989 and 2003, we performed 1,619 LTs and 157 re-LTs (9.7%) in 1,462 patients. A total of 119 retransplants (50 females, 69 males) were analyzed after consideration of exclusion criteria: recipient age <16 years, second re-LT, primary LT as split-liver or living-related LT, or combination with renal transplantation or Whipple operation. All patients received a whole-size organ. Mean follow-up was 62 months (6 days to 187 months). The main indications for re-LT were initial nonfunction (26.9%), recurrence of viral-induced hepatitis (20.2%), or acute and chronic rejection or thrombosis of the hepatic artery (both 16.8%). The main causes of death were bacterial infections (26.0%) as well as bleeding complications or recurrence of disease (both 16.0%) within the first postoperative month. Overall, 50 out of 119 patients (42%) died after re-LT, 26 patients within the first 3 months and 38 within 1 year. Overall patient survival was 89.9% after 1 month, 78.2% after 1 year, and 67.1% after 5 years. In conclusion, our study showed good clinical results after re-LT. Apart from the changing indications for re-LT with an increasing amount of initial organ failure and hepatic artery thrombosis, the analysis also showed a decreasing amount of complications such as rejection, ischemic type biliary lesions, and recurrence of the disease with unchanged outcome over a period of 15 years.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Charité, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany. robert.pfitzmann@charite.de
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pfitzmann
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Benscheidt
authors.forename: Jan Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Langrehr
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schumacher
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Neuhaus
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Neuhaus
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008107:Liver Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000401:mortality* / Q000639:trends*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D012008:Recurrence; D012086:Reoperation; D015996:Survival Rate; D014019:Tissue Donors; D016896:Treatment Outcome