Revisiting Prognosis After Liver Transplant in Patients Positive for Hepatitis C Virus: Focus on Hepatitis C Recurrence-Unrelated Complications.

OBJECTIVES

In this study, we revisited the reasons for poorer prognosis afterlivertransplantin patients with hepatitis C virus, whose main causes of death were generally known to be recurrent disease.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Between April 2003 and March 2017, among 132 patients who underwent liver transplantbecause ofliver cirrhosis at ourinstitution, 40 patients (30.3%) were positive for hepatis C virus. We retrospectively compared the overall survival afterliver transplantin patients with and without hepatitis C virus infection. Furthermore, we investigated the causes of death in transplant recipients with hepatitis C virus infections.

RESULTS

In patients with hepatitis C virus infection, overall survivalwas 82.2%, 75.2%, and50.8% at 1, 5, and 10 years,respectively, afterlivertransplant;these results were lower than those in patients without infection (94.5%, 87.0%, and 87.0% at 1, 5, and 10 years, respectively; P = .001). Among 40 patients with positive infection, 14 patients died after liver transplant. A main reason for death was hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence (3 patients). Surprisingly, only 1 patient died from hepatitis C virus-related complication (fibrosing cholestatic hepatitis); the remaining 10 patients died from reasons other than hepatitis C virus disease progression.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that clinicians should not only be aware of hepatitis C virus recurrence but should also be aware of other unrelated complications in transplant recipients who are positive for this virus.