Pediatric liver transplantation for hepatocellular cancer and rare liver malignancies: US multicenter and single ‐center experience (1981‐2015)

A tenth of all pediatric liver transplantations (LTs) are performed for unresectable liver malignancies, especially the more common hepatoblastoma (HBL). Less understood are outcomes after LT for the rare hepatocellular carcinoma, nonhepatoblastoma embryonal tumors (EMBs), and slow growing metastatic neuroendocrine tumors of childhood. Pediatric LT is increasingly performed for rare unresectable liver malignancies other than HBL. We performed a retrospective review of outcomes after LT for malignancy in the multicenter US Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR; n = 677; 1987‐2015). We then reviewed the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP; n = 74; 1981‐2014) experience focusing on LT for unresectable hepatocellular cancer (HCC), EMBs, and metastatic liver tumors (METS). HBL was included to provide reference statistics. In the SRTR database, LT for HCC and HBL increased over time (P < 0.001). Compared with other malignancies, the 149 HCC cases received fewer segmental grafts (P < 0.001) and also experienced 10‐year patient survival similar to 15,710 adult HCC LT recipients (51.6% versus 49.6%; P = 0.848, not significant [NS], log‐rank test). For 22 of 149 cases with incidental HCC, 10‐year patient survival was higher than 127 primary HCC cases (85% [95% confidence interval (CI), 70.6%‐100%] versus 48.3% [95% CI, 38%‐61%]; P = 0.168, NS) and similar to 3392 biliary atresia cases (89.9%; 95% CI, 88.7%‐91%). Actuarial 10...
Source: Liver Transplantation - Category: Transplant Surgery Authors: Tags: Original Article Source Type: research