Long-Term Survival and Its Related Factors in Pediatric Liver Transplant Recipients of Shiraz Transplant Center, Shiraz, Iran in 2012

BACKGROUND: Liver transplantation is considered as the standard treatment for both children and adults with end-stage liver diseases. Using this method, children who have no chance for life can live a much longer life .Shiraz Transplant Center is the major pediatric liver transplant center in Iran. Therefore, determining patients’ survival and its effective factors can help clinical programming for increasing such patients’ survival after liver transplantation. OBJECTIVES: The present study aimed to investigate the survival of patients below-18-years-old undergoing liver transplantation and the factors affecting their survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present historical cohort study was conducted on 392 patients below-18-year-sold who had undergone liver transplantation for the first time in the Namazi hospital liver transplant center, Shiraz, Iran between 2000 and 2011. In this study, 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year survival of the patients was assessed using Kaplan-Meier and life table methods. The effect of factors related to the recipients, donors, and the transplantation process on the patients’ survival was also investigated. RESULTS: According to the results, 1, 3, 5 and 10-year survival of patients was 73%, 67%, 66%, and 66%, respectively. Besides, 1 ,3, 5, and 10-year survival of the patients who survived 1 and 3 months after the transplantation was 84%, 78%, 77%, and 77% and 89%, 82%, 81%, and 81%, respectively. In the univariate analysis, age, patients’ weight at transplantation, initial diagnosis, PELD/MELD score, existence of post-transplant complications, and year of transplantation were found to be effective factors on the patients’ survival. In the multivariate analysis, only the type of graft, PELD/MELD score, and existence of post-transplant complications were the prognostic variables. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the patients’ survival rate was 73%, which is quite low compared to the survival rate reported in other studies. Although we only have a 12-year experience with pediatric liver transplantation, the survival rate has increased in our center through the recent years (2008-2011). However, the survival rate of the patients who had survived 3 months after the transplantation was 89% which is comparable to other studies. Overall, cholestatic diseases (biliary atresia was the most prevalent), type of transplantation (split), PELD/MELD score > 20, and existence of post-transplant complications increased the risk of death after the transplantation.