Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis prevalence in pretransplant patients and its effect on survival and graft loss post-transplant

AIM To investigate the incidence of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis(SBP) in pre-transplant patients and its effect on post transplant mortality and graft failure. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patient records from the organ procurement and transplant network data set. Patients were identified by the presence of SBP pre-transplant. Univariate post-transplant survival models were constructed using the Kaplan-Meier technique and multivariate models were constructed using the Cox proportional hazards model. Variables that affected post-transplant graft survival were identified in the SBP population. RESULTS Forty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty patient records were included in the analysis for both groups, and 1966(4.11%) patients were identified in the data set as having pre-transplant SBP. Patients that had pre-transplant SBP had higher rates of graft loss from recurrent hepatitis C virus(HCV)(3.6% vs 2.0%, P 0.0001), infections leading to graft loss(1.9% vs 1.3%, P = 0.02), primary non-function(4.3% vs 3.0%, P 0.0001) and chronic rejection(1.1% vs 0.7%, P = 0.04). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed a statistically significant difference in all-cause survival in patients with a history of SBP vs those without(P 0.0001). Pretransplant history of SBP was independently predictiveof mortality due to recurrent HCV(HR = 1.11, 95%CI: 1.02-1.21, P 0.017) after liver transplantation.CONCLUSION HCV patients prior to the advent of directing acting anti-viral agents had a higher incidence of pre-transplant SBP than other patients on the liver transplant wait list. SBP history pre-transplant resulted in a higher rate of graft loss due to recurrent HCV infection and chronic rejection.