Author information
1Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
2Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
3Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA. Electronic address: jmarkmann@partners.org.
Abstract
Hepatic retransplant accounts for 5% to 15% of liver transplants in most series and is associated with significantly increased hospital costs and inferior patient survival when compared with primary liver transplant. Early retransplants are usually due to primary graft nonfunction or vascular thrombosis, whereas later retransplants are most commonly necessitated by chronic rejection or recurrent primary liver disease. Hepatic retransplant remains the sole option for survival in many patients facing allograft failure after liver transplant. With improved techniques to match retransplant candidates with appropriate donor grafts, it is hoped that the outcomes of retransplant will continue to improve in future.