Results good with combined liver-kidney transplant

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Survival rates and organ
function are excellent in patients who undergo a combined liver
and kidney transplant, according to a new report.

Dr. Richard Ruiz and colleagues from University of
California, Los Angeles, reviewed their 16-year experience with
98 patients who received the double transplants.

Thirty-one patients died during an average follow-up of 36
months, the team reports in the Archives of Surgery. Overall
survival rates were 76 percent at 1 year, 72 percent at 3
years, and 70 percent at 5 years.

As for the organs themselves, liver graft survival rates
were 70 percent, 65 percent, and 65 percent, respectively, for
the same intervals, the results indicate, and kidney graft
survival rates were 76 percent, 72 percent, and 70 percent,
respectively.

“Combined liver and kidney transplantation offers the best
option for patients with simultaneous chronic liver and kidney
failure when it is performed at a high-volume academic
transplant center,” the authors conclude.

Patients who underwent the double transplant recently have
improved overall survival and graft survival, they add, “most
likely” thanks to better care around the time of the procedure,
the shorter time between obtaining donor organs and
transplantation, and more effective anti-rejection therapy.

SOURCE: Archives of Surgery, August 2006.