The weekend effect in liver transplantation

BACKGROUND: The weekend effect describes a phenomenon whereby patients admitted to hospitals on weekends are at higher risk of complications compared to those admitted during weekdays. However, if a weekend effect exists in orthotopic liver transplantation (oLT). METHODS: We analyzed oLT between 2006 and 2016 and stratified patients into weekday (Monday to Friday) and weekend (Saturday, Sunday) groups. Primary outcome measures were one-year patient and graft survival. RESULTS: 364 deceased donor livers were transplanted into 329 patients with 246 weekday (74.77%) and 83 weekend (25.23%) patients. Potential confounders (e.g. age, ischemia time, MELD score) were comparable. One-year patient and graft survival were similar. Frequencies of rejections, primary-non function or re-transplantation were not different. The day of transplantation was not associated with one-year patient and graft survival in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: We provide the first data for the Eurotransplant region on oLT stratified for weekend and weekday procedures and our findings suggest there was no weekend effect on oLT. While we hypothesize that the absent weekend effect is due to standardized transplant procedures and specialized multidisciplinary transplant teams, our results are encouraging showing oLT is a safe and successful procedure, independent from the day of the week.