Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 27, 2022; 14(5): 984-991
Published online May 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i5.984
Impact of utilization of hepatitis C positive organs in liver transplant: Analysis of united network for organ sharing database
Amaninder Dhaliwal, Banreet Dhindsa, Daryl Ramai, Harlan Sayles, Saurabh Chandan, Rajani Rangray
Amaninder Dhaliwal, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL 33612, United States
Banreet Dhindsa, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, United States
Daryl Ramai, Department of Internal Medicine, The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States
Harlan Sayles, Department of Biostatistics, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, United States
Saurabh Chandan, Rajani Rangray, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68124, United States
Author contributions: Dhaliwal A analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article; Dhindsa B drafting the article; Ramai D acquisition of data; Sayles H analysis and interpretation of data; Chandan S critical revision; Rangray R critical revision, final approval.
Institutional review board statement: No IRB approval needed as this is a database study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors deny any conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Amaninder Dhaliwal, MD, Academic Fellow, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 USF Magnolia Drive, FOB 2 GI Program, Tampa, FL 33612, United States. dramaninderdhaliwal@gmail.com
Received: April 4, 2021
Peer-review started: April 4, 2021
First decision: July 6, 2021
Revised: August 6, 2021
Accepted: April 9, 2022
Article in press: April 9, 2022
Published online: May 27, 2022
Processing time: 414 Days and 16.3 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Due to the mismatch in need and availability of donor organs and high mortality rate on the transplant waiting list, newer strategies are needed. In the era prior to direct acting anti-virals (DAAs), recurrence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in post liver transplantations (LT) patients leading to decreased graft survival had greatly influenced the under-utilization of these organs, especially in HCV negative recipients. With the high sustained virologic response rate with DAAs both pre and post LT, this pool of organs can be utilized leading to more organ availability and decreased in mortality rate on transplant.

Research motivation

There is limited data evaluating outcomes of hepatitis C positive donor organs to HCV negative recipients in LT.

Research objectives

The aim of this study is perform a comparative analysis on odds of survival between the HCV positive donors and negative recipients as compared to HCV negative donors and recipients United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database.

Research methods

We included patients in UNOS database who underwent deceased donor LT over a period of three year. Data analysis was performed using SAS 9.4 software. Survival rates amongst groups were analyzed with help of Kaplan Meier log rank test.

Research results

Our study shows similar chance of survival of recipient, irrespective of HCV status of the donor.

Research conclusions

Our study shows that HCV positive organs can be transplanted to recipients, irrespective of their HCV status due to the advent of DAA regimen.

Research perspectives

More studies are needed to confirm findings of this study.