About
Arterial conduits in liver transplantation are almost as old as the procedure itself.
Although rarely performed, there is no doubt that thousands of patients’ lives were saved because of the use of arterial grafts.
However, arterial grafts are known to be associated with a higher rate of occlusion and a lower patient and graft survival when compared to conventional end-to-end anastomosis.
Several studies discuss that antiaggregation or anticoagulation could be protective for occlusion in arterial conduits.
The primary goal of this study is to conduct a multicenter cohort analysis to define the outcome of different types of conduits and to investigate whether antiplatelet / anticoagulantion has an impact on patency rates.
- Specific aim #1: To identify independent risk factors for early and late occlusion of arterial conduits in liver transplantation.
- Specific aim #2: To compare different placement sites (infrarenal, supraceliac, iliacal, etc.) of arterial conduits (Figure 1) in terms of occlusion rates and graft survival.
- Specific aim #3: To investigate whether antiplatelet therapy is protective in terms of arterial patency.
Primary endpoint will be the 30-day conduit occlusion.
Secondary endpoints include postoperative complications, mortality, late conduit occlusion, graft and patient survival.
All consecutive cases from several high-volume centers worldwide having performed deceased donor liver transplantation that required an aorto-hepatic conduit from January 2007 until December 2016 will be included.
For more information, please read the whole protocol.