Liver retransplantation: a single-center outcome and financial analysis

Abstract

Retransplantation of the liver (re-OLTx) accounts for approximately 10% of all liver transplants in the United States. The decision to offer a patient a second liver transplant has significant financial, ethical, and outcome implications. This large, single-center experience describes some outcome and financial data to consider when making this decision. One thousand three liver transplants were performed in 921 patients at our center. Patients were divided into adult and pediatric groups, and further by whether they received a single transplant or more than one. Overall survival, variation in survival by timing of re-OLTx, and survival in adults with hepatitis C were investigated, as were hospital charges and cost of re-OLTx. Adults, but not children, had a significant decrement in survival following a second transplant. Second transplants more than double the cost of the initial transplant, but there is a significantly higher cost associated with early retransplantation compared to the cost associated with late retransplantation (costs of first and second transplants included in both cases). This difference is due to a longer length of stay and associated cost in the ICU. Adult patients retransplanted early have the same overall survival compared to those done late. The sample size of the adult HCV re-OLTx population was too small to reach statistical significance despite their observed poorer outcome.