Gender-incompatible liver transplantation is not a risk factor for patient survival.
OBJECTIVE
Clinical data may be suggestive for differences in patient survival in gender-incompatible orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT), but findings are inconsistent and are putatively linked to circulating hormones. We therefore investigated patient survival as well as metabolism of steroids to identify possible causes of improved graft survival in gender-mismatched OLT.


METHODS
We examined our single-centre database of 1355 recipients of first liver transplants for overall patient survival by non-parametric and parametric analysis of multivariance taking the age of recipient and donor, ischaemia time, underlying liver disease and the time period of transplantation into account. Furthermore, the metabolism of androgens in gender-incompatible OLT was studied in cultures of primary human hepatocytes obtained from male and female patients.


RESULTS
Unlike previous studies we were unable to determine overall significant differences in patient survival in gender-incompatible OLT, even though a statistically significant improved patient survival was observed when male donor livers were transplanted into female recipients in univariant analysis (P=0.047). However, when the overall patient management was taken into account no difference in survival was determined in multivariant analysis. Importantly, the metabolism of testosterone did not differ between male and female hepatocyte cultures, except for the production of 6-alpha-hydroxy-testosterone (P<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Taken collectively, clinical observations may tend to suggest a slightly improved patient survival in gender-incompatible OLT but this cannot be explained on the bases of androgen metabolism. Overall, we view gender-incompatible liver transplantation not to be a confounder in patient survival after OLT.
Lehner
Frank
F
Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
Becker
Thomas
T
Klempnauer
Jürgen
J
Borlak
Jürgen
J
D005260:Female; D006085:Graft Survival; D022781:Hepatocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000379:methods / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013739:Testosterone / Q000378:metabolism; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D013739:Testosterone