Survival and resource utilization in liver transplant recipients: the impact of admission to the intensive care unit

The organ allocation system for liver transplantation was recently changed to address criticisms that it was too subjective and relied too heavily on total waiting time. The new system, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease and Pediatric Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD/PELD), stratifies patients based on the risk of 3-month pretransplant mortality, allocating livers thereby. There is concern that such a scheme gives priority to the sickest patients, who may not enjoy good posttransplant outcomes. The aim of the present study was to compare the outcomes of liver transplant recipients who had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) to those who had not. Admission to the ICU is considered here to be another indicator of the severity of illness. Patients who underwent liver transplantation at the Cleveland Clinic between January 1, 1993 and October 31, 1998 and were at least 18 years of age were coded for liver transplantation as status 2, 2A, and 2B (n = 112). These patients fell into three groups: those who had been admitted to an ICU before transplantation (group A, n = 16), those who had been admitted to the hospital but not to an ICU (group B, n = 63), and those who were living at home and had undergone an elective transplant (group C, n = 33). Clinical and demographic information (age, sex, race, disease severity, disease etiology, and cold ischemia time) were associated with patient survival, patient/graft survival, and posttransplant resource utilization (hospital length of stay and hospital charges). Age, sex, race, etiology of disease, and cold ischemia time were similar among the three groups. Patient survival, patient/graft survival, and hospital charges were not statistically different between the three groups. The median length of stay was statistically different only between groups B and C (P =.006). Our data support the idea that if severely ill patients with end-stage liver disease are selected appropriately, liver transplant outcomes are similar to those observed among subjects who are less ill and are transplanted electively from home.