Effect of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Metabolic Risk Factors on Waitlist Outcomes in Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States. Prior data suggest that NAFLD-HCC patients are less likely to receive liver transplantation (LT) and have worse overall survival; however, the reason for this discrepancy is unknown. METHODS. We conducted a retrospective study of 631 HCC patients listed for LT at a large academic center from 2004 to 2013. Waitlist dropout and LT were analyzed using competing risk regression. RESULTS. Compared with other-HCC patients (n = 589), NAFLD-HCC patients (n = 42, 6.7%) were older (65 versus 58, P < 0.001) with more women (50.0 versus 23.6%, P < 0.001), Hispanic ethnicity (40.5 versus 17.7%, P = 0.001), obesity (69.0 versus 29.9%, P < 0.001), diabetes mellitus (59.5 versus 27.8%, P < 0.01), insulin-dependence (23.8 versus 10.2%, P = 0.007), hyperlipidemia (40.5 versus 10.5, P < 0.001), and statin use (33.3 versus 5.3%, P < 0.001). Cumulative incidence of waitlist dropout at 2 y was 17.4% (95% confidence intervals, 7.7-30.4) for NAFLD HCC and 25.4% (95% confidence intervals, 21.9-29.0) for other HCC (P = 0.28). No difference in waitlist dropout or receipt of LT between NAFLD HCC and other HCC was found on regression analysis. Similarly, NAFLD and obesity, obesity alone, diabetes mellitus, insulin-dependence, hyperlipidemia, and statin use were not associated with waitlist outcomes. Finally, we observed no statistically significant difference in 5-y survival from HCC diagnosis between NAFLD HCC and other HCC (78.5% versus 66.9%, P = 0.9). CONCLUSIONS. In our single-center cohort, we observed no difference in waitlist outcomes or survival in NAFLD HCC, although conclusions are limited by the small number of NAFLD-HCC patients. Notably, the inclusion of patients with obesity in the NAFLD-HCC group and stratification by individual metabolic factors also showed no difference in waitlist outcomes.