Comparisons of surgical outcomes and recurrence after liver transplantation in patients with Hepatitis B vs. Hepatitis C related hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Previous studies described inferior long-term outcomes among HCV related HCC patients after liver resection and liver transplantation (LT). This study aims to evaluate the impact of HCV and HBV status on overall survival and recurrence in HCC patients after LT. METHOD: This was a retrospective study at a university centre. Data was retrieved from a prospectively collected database. All HCC patients who underwent LT from 1991 to 2012 were analyzed. RESULTS: Two hundred and thirty nine patients, of whom 207 had HBV and 32 had HCV underwent LT. Patients’ baseline demographic and tumor characteristics were listed in table 1. The 1-, 3, and 5-year patient survival were 97.0 vs. 90.3%, 86.5 vs. 86.4% and 79.4 vs. 86.4% in HBV and HCV patients respectively (p=0.584). The overall graft survival at 1-, 3- and 5-year were 96.5 vs. 87.1%, 86 vs. 87.1% and 78.9 vs. 87.1% for HBV and HCV patients respectively (p=0.546). 35/207 HBV patients (16.9%) and no HCV patient developed HCC recurrence. Majority (27/41) of patients in HBV group died as a result of HCC recurrence. In HCV group, 2 died as a result of reactivation and 2 died of sepsis. CONCLUSION: Etiology of underlying cirrhosis has no impact on overall patient and graft survival in HCC patients after LT.