Liver Transplant Patients Show High Survival Rates

A study has found that more than 60% of liver transplant patients with advanced liver cancer are still alive after five years. In contrast, the survival of patients who did not undergo transplant was nearly zero. The results were published in the October 28 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

In addition to this high rate of survival, researchers found that survival rates had increased steadily over the last decade. This suggests that the criteria for patient selection established by other experts may help doctors select those patients most likely to respond well to the transplant. The investigators say that regular screening of patients with cirrhosis, a risk factor for cancer, is needed to detect cancer early and insure the best outcome.

The study involved 985 patients who had liver transplantation for liver cancer and more than 33,000 patients who had liver transplantation for other reasons. The researchers found significant and steady improvement in survival over time among the liver transplant patients with liver cancer. The five-year survival rate rose from 25.3% during 1987-1991, to 47% during 1992-1996, and to 61.1% during 1996-2001.

"This is good news for patients with liver cancer. If diagnosed early, transplantation is the treatment of choice for patients with liver cancer and advanced cirrhosis,” said lead author Paul Thuluvath, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (Baltimore, MD, USA).




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