Impact of biliary complications on quality of life in live-donor liver transplant recipients.

BACKGROUND

Despite significant advancements in liver transplantation (LT) surgical procedures and perioperative care, post-LT biliary complications (BCs) remain a significant source of morbidity, mortality, and graft failure. In addition, data are conflicting regarding the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of LT recipients. Thus, the success of LT should be considered in terms of both the survival and recovery of HRQoL.

AIM

To assess the impact of BCs on the HRQoL of live-donor LT recipients (LDLT-Rs).

METHODS

We retrospectively analysed data for 25 LDLT-Rs who developed BCs post-LT between January 2011 and December 2016 at our institution. The Short Form 12 version 2 (SF 12v2) health survey was used to assess their HRQoL. We also included 25 LDLT-Rs without any post-LT complications as a control group.

RESULTS

The scores for HRQoL of LDLT-Rs who developed BCs were significantly higher than the norm-based scores in the domains of physical functioning ( = 0.003), role-physical ( < 0.001), bodily pain ( = 0.003), general health ( = 0.004), social functioning ( = 0.005), role-emotional ( < 0.001), and mental health ( < 0.001). No significant difference between the two groups regarding vitality was detected ( = 1.000). The LDLT-Rs with BCs had significantly lower scores than LDLT-Rs without BCs in all HRQoL domains ( < 0.001) and the mental ( < 0.001) and physical ( = 0.0002) component summary scores.

CONCLUSION

The development of BCs in LDLT-Rs causes a lower range of improvement in HRQoL.