Allocation of Liver Grafts Worldwide Is there a best System?

Liver transplantation (LT) has been undoubtedly one of the most successful procedures developed in the late 20th century, and as a consequence allocation of scarce liver grafts has caused many controversies (Fig. 1-2) [1]. In the early stages of the procedure, from 1980s until mid-1990s, liver grafts were prioritized in the USA based on the degree of sickness and localization of the patients in the hospital [2]. For example, candidates admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) received the highest priority taking over on patients hospitalized in a non-ICU setting as well as outpatients, somewhat independently of their accumulated waiting time [3].

Source: Journal of Hepatology - June 10, 2019 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Christoph Tschuor, Alberto Ferrarese, Christoph K ümmerli, Philipp Dutkowski, Patrizia Burra, Pierre-Alain Clavien, Liver Allocation Study Group Source Type: research