UCLA liver transplantation: analysis of the first 1,000 patients.

Graft and patient survival rates for Black patients were higher than for any group. This may be due to the younger age distribution among Black transplant recipients versus other races at UCLA. Graft and patient survival for Asian patients were significantly lower than for any other group. However, this result was not totally accounted for by the rapid recurrence of disease in hepatitis B patients. Patients with a positive flow cytometry crossmatch had significantly lower first and second graft survival rates due to early graft loss. Patients with PRA of more than 10% had a higher proportion of positive flow crossmatches. However, as a group, patients with more than 10% PRA did not demonstrate decreased graft survival. Consideration should be given to prospectively flow crossmatching the more than 10% PRA group. Patients with zero-DR mismatches had better survival than patients with one- and 2-DR mismatches. Prospective HLA matching in OLT patients is not currently done.