Clinical outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 in liver transplant recipients

BACKGROUND: Liver transplant patients are at higher risk of infection due to immunosuppression. Whether liver transplant recipients are also more susceptible to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and will have worse outcomes than the general population if they develop coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to SARS-CoV-2 is a topic of ongoing studies, including ours. AIM: To assess the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in liver transplant recipients. METHODS: This was a case-control study, with a database search performed (at the study site) from March 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021. Patients 18 years or older who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were included in the study. Patients with infection other than pneumonia at the time of admission were excluded. After selection, patients who had been the recipient of liver transplant were considered cases and those without as controls. After being matched by age, sex, and obesity, two controls were randomly selected for each case. Death and hospitalization due to COVID-19 infection were the primary outcomes. Secondary outcomes were pertinent only to patients who were hospitalized, and they included duration of hospital stay, need for supplemental oxygen, presence of at least one type of end-organ damage, effects on liver enzymes, incidence of acute liver failure, effect on d-dimer levels, and incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test was used to compare all primary and secondary outcomes with the exception of duration of hospital stay and d-dimer levels, which were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Alpha criterion was set at 0.05. Logistic regression was performed for each primary outcome (as the dependent variable). Statistical analyses were performed using R software. RESULTS: Of the 470 Liver transplant recipients who were tested for COVID-19 via the PCR test, 39 patients tested positive (8.3%). There was no significant difference between cases and controls regarding death [odds ratio (OR): 2.04, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.14–29.17; P = 0.60] and hospitalization rates (OR: 1.38, 95%CI: 0.59–3.24; P = 0.46). There also was no significant difference between cases and controls with respect to all secondary outcomes. Among all patients who had elevated liver enzymes, their levels were either normalized, improving, or remained stable at the time of discharge. No patient developed acute liver failure. Of the 31 hospitalized patients, 27 received a prophylactic anticoagulation dose and no patient developed VTE in either group. Among cases who were hospitalized, immunosuppression was decreased in 5 patients and there was no change in immunosuppression among the remaining 7 patients. One patient died in each of these two subgroups. Logistic regression analysis was done, but all of the models had poor model predictions as well as insignificant predictors (independent variables). Therefore, they could not be used for either prediction or inference. CONCLUSION: Clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in liver transplant recipients are not different than those without transplantation. COVID-19 should not impact timely health care access and immunosuppression continuation among these patients.