Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Sep 24, 2015; 5(3): 95-101
Published online Sep 24, 2015. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v5.i3.95
Obesity and liver transplantation
Subhashini Ayloo, John Armstrong, Scott Hurton, Michele Molinari
Subhashini Ayloo, John Armstrong, Scott Hurton, Michele Molinari, Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 2Y9, Canada
Author contributions: Ayloo S and Molinari M contributed to systematic literature review; Ayloo S and Molinari M wrote the manuscript; Armstrong J and Hurton S contributed to pictures and tables creation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no conflict 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: Michele Molinari, MD, MSc, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, 1276 South Park Street, Office 6-302 Victoria General Hospital, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 2Y9, Canada. michele.molinari@cdha.nshealth.ca
Telephone: +1-902-4737624 Fax: +1-902-4737639
Received: April 4, 2015
Peer-review started: April 5, 2015
First decision: June 3, 2015
Revised: July 6, 2015
Accepted: July 21, 2015
Article in press: August 7, 2015
Published online: September 24, 2015
Processing time: 173 Days and 12.5 Hours
Abstract

The percentage of overweight and obese patients (OPs) waiting for a liver transplant continues to increase. Despite the significant advances occurred in bariatric medicine, obesity is still considered a relative contraindication to liver transplantation (LT). The main aim of this review is to appraise the literature on the outcomes of OPs undergoing LT, treatments that might reduce their weight before, during or after surgery, and discuss some of the controversies and limitations of the current knowledge with the intent of highlighting areas where future research is needed.

Keywords: Liver transplantation; Bariatric surgery; Obesity; End-stage liver disease; Weight-loss; Access to transplantation

Core tip: The prevalence of obesity in the general population has doubled and the number of obese patients (OPs) affected by end-stage liver disease has increased with the same pace. There is conflicting data on the outcomes of OPs undergoing liver transplantation (LT) and the main aim of this review is to appraise the literature on the outcomes of OPs undergoing LT, treatments that might reduce their weight before, during or after surgery, and discuss some of the controversies and limitations of the current knowledge with the intent of highlighting areas where future research is needed.