Long term outcome of patients with portal thrombosis previous to liver transplantation

Portal vein thrombosis is a late consequence of advanced cirrhosis. Its development has been associated with worse long term patient and graft survival, as well as a higher risk of vascular complications after liver transplantation. We reviewed all patients who underwent liver transplantation (LT) at “12 de Octubre” Hospital between 2002 and january 2017. Patients were divided according to the presence of preoperative portal thrombosis (PT, 126) or no PT (N-PT, 724). Mean recipient age was 55.5 ± 9 in PT vs 53.7 ± 11 in N-PT (p 0.085).There was a 59,2% rate of HCV infection in the PT group (52.4% in N-PT; p 0.157), and 22.2% of patients in the PT group had a hepatocellular carcinoma (vs 29,9% in N-PT group; p 0.080). MELD score was 14.7 en TP vs 15.6 in N-PT (p 0.067). Transfusion: an average of 12.3 units of RBC in the PT group and 9.2 in the N-PT (p 0.084), Portal thrombosis recurrence rate was 4% in patients with a previous diagnosis of PT. However, the rate of arterial thrombosis was 4.8% in the PT group vs 3.8% in the N-PT group (p 0.890). Actuarial survival at 1, 3 and 5 years was 86.5%, 79.1% and 76.2% respectively in the PT group, vs 84.5%, 78.3% y 74.3% in the N-PT group (p = 0.489). Pretransplant portal thrombosis is a diagnosis that has not been associated with a decreased survival after LT in our series; but seems to determine an increase in transfusion requirements and a higher risk of postoperative vascular complications.