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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 28, 2016; 22(4): 1570-1581
Published online Jan 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i4.1570
Liver transplantation for viral hepatitis in 2015
Alberto Ferrarese, Alberto Zanetto, Martina Gambato, Ilaria Bortoluzzi, Elena Nadal, Giacomo Germani, Marco Senzolo, Patrizia Burra, Francesco Paolo Russo
Alberto Ferrarese, Alberto Zanetto, Martina Gambato, Ilaria Bortoluzzi, Elena Nadal, Giacomo Germani, Marco Senzolo, Patrizia Burra, Francesco Paolo Russo, Gastroenterology/Multivisceral Transplant Unit, Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology, Padua University Hospital, 35128 PD Padua, Italy
Author contributions: Ferrarese A and Zanetto A equally contributed to create this manuscript; Ferrarese A, Zanetto A and Gambato M wrote the manuscript; Bortoluzzi I, Nadal E, Germani G, Senzolo M and Burra P retrieved articles and analyzed data; Russo FP edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Francesco Paolo Russo, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Gastroenterology/Multivisceral Transplant Unit, Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology, Padua University Hospital, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128 PD Padua, Italy. francescopaolo.russo@unipd.it
Telephone: +39-49-8217024 Fax: +39-49-8760820
Received: May 7, 2015
Peer-review started: May 11, 2015
First decision: August 31, 2015
Revised: September 20, 2015
Accepted: November 19, 2015
Article in press: November 19, 2015
Published online: January 28, 2016
Abstract

Liver transplantation (LT) is a life-saving treatment for patients with end-stage liver disease and for patients with liver cell cancer related to liver disease. Acute and chronic liver diseases related to hepatitis viruses are between the main indications for liver transplantation. The risk of viral reinfection after transplantation is the main limiting factor in these indications. Before the availability of antiviral prophylaxis, hepatitis B virus (HBV) recurrence was universal in patients who were HBV DNA-positive before transplantation. The natural history of recurrent HBV was accelerated by immunosuppression, and it progressed rapidly to graft failure and death. Introduction of post-transplant prophylaxis with immunoglobulin alone first, and associated to antiviral drugs later, drastically reduced HBV recurrence, resulting in excellent long-term outcomes. On the contrary, recurrence of hepatitis C is the main cause of graft loss in most transplant programs. Overall, patient and graft survival after LT for hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated cirrhosis is inferior compared with other indications. However, successful pretransplant or post transplant antiviral therapy has been associated with increased graft and overall survival. Until recently, the combination of pegylated interferon and ribavirin was the standard of care for the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C. Highly active antiviral compounds have been developed over the past decade, thanks to new in vitro systems to study HCV entry, replication, assembly, and release.

Keywords: Liver transplantation, Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, Recurrence post-transplantation, Antiviral therapy, Prophylactic therapy

Core tip: This review explores the available data in the literature concerning the treatment of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus in the setting of liver transplantation in 2015. In particular, we will discuss regarding the possibilities to treat patients before and/or after the transplantation.