Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Mar 27, 2021; 13(3): 375-383
Published online Mar 27, 2021. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v13.i3.375
Efficacy and safety of once daily tacrolimus compared to twice daily tacrolimus after liver transplantation
Khalid Ibrahim Bzeizi, Ali Albenmousa, Mohamed Shawkat, Zidan Ahmed, Saleh Alabbad, Waleed Al-Hamoudi, Roberto Troisi, Deiter Broering
Khalid Ibrahim Bzeizi, Ali Albenmousa, Department of Liver Transplantation, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh 12713, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed Shawkat, Department of Internal medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Minia 1234, Egypt
Zidan Ahmed, Saleh Alabbad, Waleed Al-Hamoudi, Roberto Troisi, Department of Liver and Small Bowel Transplantation and Hepatobiliary-Pancreatic Surgery, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh 12713, Saudi Arabia
Deiter Broering, Organ Transplant Center, King Faisal Specialist Hosp and Res Ctr, Riyadh 11211, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: Bzeizi K contributed to the conceptualization, data curation methodology, validation and writing both the original and revised manuscript; Al-Hamoudi W and Troisi R contributed to the conceptualization, validation and editing of the original manuscript; Shawakt M and Zidan A contributed to the data curation methodology, validation and editing of the original manuscript; Alabad S contributed to the validation and editing of the original manuscript; Albenmousa A contributed to the data curation methodology, validation and editing of the original manuscript; Broering D contributed to the conceptualization, validation and in the writing original manuscript; and all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that no financial or any other conflict of interest is associated with this work.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The guidelines of the PRISMA 2009 statement have been adopted.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Khalid Ibrahim Bzeizi, FRCP, Doctor, Department of Liver Transplantation, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Zahrawi Street, Al Maather, Riyadh 12713, Saudi Arabia. kbzeizi@kfshrc.edu.sa
Received: November 5, 2020
Peer-review started: November 5, 2020
First decision: November 30, 2020
Revised: January 4, 2021
Accepted: February 18, 2021
Article in press: February 18, 2021
Published online: March 27, 2021
Processing time: 134 Days and 13.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Tacrolimus, a calcineurin inhibitor is an important component of the immunosuppressive regimens post liver transplantation. Compliance to immuno-suppression treatment generally is important and non-adherence is a major risk factor of graft rejection and loss. Compliance to medication declines over the course of time in patients after liver transplantation due to several factors and this contributes to about 20% of late acute rejection. The efficacy of once daily tacrolimus regimens has been reported in many studies and this systematic review/meta-analysis confirmed the evidence of comparable efficacy and safety of prolonged release tacrolimus to the twice daily immediate release formulation.