Grafts from selected deceased donors over 80 years old can safely expand the number of liver transplants: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to present the outcome of deceased adult liver transplantation from octogenarian (≥80 years old) donors compared to younger grafts.

Methods: A systematic search was performed on six databases to identify all available original papers that report the outcome of adult recipients who underwent liver transplantation from a deceased octogenarian donor.

Results: Overall, 39,034 liver transplantations from 12 studies were reported with 789 (2.02%) cases receiving grafts from octogenarian donors. Eight studies were included in the meta-analysis. There was no difference regarding the one, three, and five-year graft and patient survival between the recipients of livers <80 years old and octogenarian grafts. There were significantly more episodes of biliary complications in the recipients of octogenarian grafts (34/459; 7.4%) in comparison to the recipients of livers <80 years old (372/37074; 1.0%) (OR 0.53; 95% CI = 0.35-0.81; P 0.004; I² = 0%). The incidence of primary non-function, vascular complications and re-transplantation did not differ between groups.

Conclusions: The short- and medium-term graft and patient survival of octogenarian liver transplantation is not inferior compared to the liver transplantation with younger grafts, however with a higher rate of biliary complications.

Keywords: Biliary complications; Graft survival; Liver transplantation; Octogenarian donors; Systematic review.