title: Excellent liver retransplantation outcomes in hepatitis C-infected recipients.
abstract: Survival outcomes for liver retransplantation (LRTx) after graft loss in HCV patients (HCV-LRTx) are generally considered inferior to those after non-HCV-LRTx. Between January 1, 2005 and June 30, 2011, our center performed 663 LTx, including 116 (17.5%) LRTx, 41 (35.3%) of which were more than 90 d after the LTx. Twenty-nine (70.7%) LRTx were performed in HCV antibody-positive individuals. We compared patient demographics, baseline characteristics and outcomes of our HCV-LRTx group with the HCV-LRTx patients from the most recent OPTN database covering the same time period. Our Kaplan-Meier HCV-LRTx one-, three-, and five-yr HCV-LRTx patient survival rates were 86.2%, 79.0%, and 72.4%, respectively compared with the OPTN one-, three-, and five-yr HCV-LRTx survival rates of 73.3%, 59.0%, and 51.3% respectively. Likewise, our graft survival rates were higher than OPTN rates at all time points studied. We performed a higher percentage of HCV-LRTx as simultaneous liver/kidney transplants (SLK) (37.9% vs. 21.8%) and recorded shorter warm (30 ± 4 vs. 45 ± 23 min) and cold ischemic times (5:44 ± 1:53 vs. 7:36 ± 3:12 h:min).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our experience, HCV-LRTx patient and graft survival rates are comparable to LTx survival rates and are higher than the rates described by OPTN.
authors.affiliation: Multi-organ Transplant Institute, Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans, LA 70121, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kressel
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Therapondos
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bohorquez
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Borg
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bruce
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Carmody
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Girgrah
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reichman
authors.forename: G E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Loss
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006085:Graft Survival; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D017093:Liver Failure / Q000150:complications / Q000601:surgery / Q000821:virology*; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D011379:Prognosis; D012086:Reoperation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate
keywords: HCV recurrence; cold ischemic time; retransplantation; survival rates; warm ischemic time