In the past two decades, mortality rates following liver transplantation have dropped by more than half in the UK, according to a recent analysis of almost 10,000 liver transplant recipients published in the British Journal of Surgery.
The study evaluated the short- and long-term mortality of recipients with (n=1879) and without (n=7661) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the UK between 1997 and 2016.
The use of organs donated after circulatory death (DCD) increased from 0 per cent in 1997-2001 (era 1) to 35.2 per cent in 2012-2016 (era 4) for recipients with HCC and from 0.2 per cent to 24.1 per cent for non-HCC recipients.
Three-year mortality rate decreased from 28.3 per cent in era 1 to 16.9 per cent in era 4 (adjusted HR [aHR], 0.47; 95% CI, 0.35-0.63) for recipients with HCC and from 20.4 per cent to 9.3 per cent (aHR, 0.44, 95% CI, 0.36-0.53) for non-HCC recipients.
The data indicate that the mortality rate after liver transplantation has more than halved in the past 20 years, despite increasing use of DCD donors, the authors concluded.
