Outcome of Hepatitis B Virus Infection After Living-Donor Liver Transplant: A Single-center Experience Over 20 Years.

Objectives: Despite living-donor liver transplant being a life-saving therapy for patients with hepatitis B virus with or without hepatocellular carcinoma, outcomes for patients with these diseases are worse. Hepatitis B virus recurrence or relapse of hepatocellular carcinoma can result in subsequent graft loss or patient death. In this study, we discuss the postoperative outcomes of patients with hepatitis B virus infection after living-donor liver transplant.
Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 125 patients with hepatitis B virus-related end-stage liver disease, comparing results with 1228 control patients who had other pathologies, including hepatitis C virus, combined hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus, and neither virus.
Results: Survival rates of patients with hepatitis B virus did not differ from the control groups (P > .05). Patients with concurrent hepatitis B virus and hepatocellular carcinoma were significantly older (P < .0001), had critical status (P < .0001), had chronic underlying pathology (P = .001), lower graft-to-recipient body weight ratio (P = .047), needed more intraoperative plasma transfusion, and experienced more rejection episodes than those without hepatocellular carcinoma. Of interest, in 5 patients who had hepatitis B virus recurrence after living-donor liver transplant, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score was significantly higher than those who did not have recurrence (P = .015). In addition, 2 patients had hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence in the form of peritoneal metastasis, with both patients having high preoperative alpha-fetoprotein levels.
Conclusions: Our study provides details on long-term outcomes of patients with hepatitis B virus infection who had undergone living-donor liver transplant. Based on our results, we suggest that prolonged antiviral prophylactic therapy in the form of hepatitis B immunoglobulin with either lamivudine or entecavir be considered for patients who associated with risk factors to prevent postoperative recurrence.