Even a new liver does not eliminate the risk of cirrhosis

Cirrhosis can develop again after a liver transplant. In most cases, this happens because the disease that originally caused the cirrhosis recurs.

TodayPress TV reports that researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina reached this conclusion. The findings were published online in the journal Portal Hypertension & Cirrhosis.

The researchers analyzed data from 937 adult patients who underwent liver transplantation due to cirrhosis between 1987 and 2023.

After transplantation, cirrhosis recurred in 107 patients, or 11.4% of the study population. The disease was observed an average of 7.8 years after surgery.

In 83.2% of cases, the cause was the same liver disease that had led to the transplant. Cirrhosis recurred most frequently among patients diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis and primary biliary cholangitis. Recurrence occurred in 29.1% and 21.2% of these patients, respectively.

In another 18 patients, or 1.9% of the total, cirrhosis developed for the first time after transplantation and was unrelated to the original disease. The main causes in this group included chronic rejection of the transplanted liver and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

The researchers also found that the development of cirrhosis after transplantation was associated with lower long-term survival. Twenty years after transplantation, 50.6% of patients who subsequently developed cirrhosis were still alive. Among those who did not develop cirrhosis, the figure was 70.7%.

The risk of death was higher in the group that developed cirrhosis, with a hazard ratio of 1.77.

Giymat Mahir