Analysis of Clinical Outcomes and Complications in Patients Received Liver Transplantation: A Retrospective Study

Liver transplantation is the last-line method for liver failure. Thomas Starzl completed the first liver transplant in 1967, liver transplantation is developing rapidly. In Taiwan, the first liver transplantation was started in 1984, and the living donor liver transplantation was started in 1994. According to statistics from the Taiwan Organ Transplant Registration Center, from 2005 to 2018, a total of 6,211 liver transplants were completed in Taiwan, and the three-year survival rate was 78.9%.

The success rate of liver transplantation is closely related to the operation method, complications, the patient's conditions, and postoperative care. Besides, Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the whole world and also the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death. Approximately 90% of patients are diagnosed with liver cirrhosis at the same time when they are diagnosed with liver cancer. Once the late stages of liver cirrhosis happen, the effect of treatment will be reduced. Therefore, liver transplantation is the only treatment option that can solve the simultaneous occurrence of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Since 1996, liver transplantation has been used to treat liver cancer, the organ source is always the Achilles tendon of organ transplantation. Therefore, Milan criteria was designed to achieve the justice of organ share. However, living donor liver transplant is more popular in Eastern countries because of religious factors and ethical issues and many famous medical centers are trying to expand the original Milan or UCSF criteria, such as Kyoto criteria and Up-to-7 criteria, hoping to save more patients. However, with the expansion of conditions, the chance of recurrence or metastasis after transplantation is bound to increase. According to reports from different famous medical centers, the recurrence rate of liver cancer after liver transplantation is about 10-20%.

Therefore, we assume that patients with liver replacement caused by different diseases may have other postoperative conditions and complications. This study will review the preoperative diagnosis, surgical status, postoperative status, medication status, complications and recurrence of liver transplant patients in our hospital for statistical analysis.