Article
Surgical complications requiring early reoperation are associated with poor long-term outcome after liver transplantation
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Published: | March 21, 2014 |
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Introduction: Surgical complications may have not only immediate, but also long term effects on postoperative outcomes. Here, we aimed to investigate the impact of surgical complications requiring an early reoperation on patients’ and graft survival following liver transplantation.
Material and methods: Donor data, Transplant variables, comorbidities, postoperative surgical complications and the outcome of 277 consecutive liver transplants performed from 01.2007 to 12.2012 were analyzed.
Results: 277 liver transplants were performed in n=251 patients. Of these n=137 (54.6%) required one or more reoperations due to complications. The demographics of donors and recipients between “REOP” and “NO-REOP” did not significantly differ. MELD score was slightly though not significantly higher in the REOP-group (24.5 vs. 21, p=.2). 1- and 2-yr mortality was significantly increased in the pts. requiring reoperations compared with those without reoperation (29.2% vs. 4.4%, p<0.001; 33.6% vs. 7.9%, p<0.001).Also, graft survival rates differed significantly. 1-yr graft survival was 62.2% in the group with reoperations compared to 89.6% without reoperations (p<0,001).
Conclusion: These data suggest that surgical complications after liver transplantation have a significant impact on the half-life of the transplanted livers and on the overall patient survival.