Risk factors associated with outcome in liver retransplantation: multicentric study

Abstract

Background/aims: To externally validate the predictive mathematical model of survival designed by Linhares et al. (2006).

Methodology: This retrospective study was conducted on 217 individuals submitted to liver retransplantation from January 2000 to December 2008 in four European centers. The following variables were obtained on the recipient: age, creatinine, urgency of retransplantation and time between transplantation and retransplantation. The Kaplan-Meier survival curve and ROC curve were used to validate the mathematical model.

Results: The present results showed a similar pattern of survival compared to the study of Linhares et al. (2006) concerning the biological variations, when survival curves were compared for each of the four variables analyzed between both samples. When compared, the areas below the ROC curve (aROC) of derivation (0.733) and validation samples (0.593) presented significant difference (p = 0.005), revealing low relationship of sensitivity and specificity between the two curves. Similarity was observed in Kaplan-Meier survival curves.

Conclusion: This study allowed external validation by the Kaplan-Meier survival curves of the predictive mathematical model of survival in liver retransplantation proposed by Linhares et al. (2006). However, validation through the ROC curve, the aROC, evidenced weak discrimination ability.