Donors aged 80 years or older are not necessarily inferior for a liver transplantation (LT) graft, compared with young ideal donors (aged 18-39 years), according to an analysis of the perioperative LT period.
While “the potential risks and benefits associated with the use of livers from octogenarian donors must be closely weighed, with careful donor evaluation, selective donor-to-recipient matching and skilled perioperative care, octogenarian grafts do not affect the short-term course of patients undergoing LT,” concluded Gianni Biancofiore, MD, of Azienda Ospedaliera-Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, Italy, and his coauthors (Dig Liver Dis. 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.dld.2017.01.149).
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Perioperative differences were insubstantial in terms of cardiovascular complications (P = .2), respiratory complications (P = 1.0), coagulopathy (P = .5), and incidence of perfusion syndrome (P = .3). Median ICU length of stay of the two groups was identical (P = .4). No differences in terms of death or retransplant were observed during the ICU stay.
“Accordingly, anesthesiologists and intensivists should not label liver allografts from donors aged 80 years [or older] as ‘unusable’ or ‘high risk’ ” based on age alone, the authors concluded.
The authors declared no sources of funding and no conflicts of interest.