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Introduction and Objectives: Cirrhosis and acute liver failure have a high mortality rate and liver transplantation is the only treatment that has shown improvement in the survival of these patients, being 90% in the first year after transplantation and 80% in five years. Currently, in our center there are 95 patients on the liver transplant waiting list, being the largest in the country. The availability of an organ is of key importance and is directly related to the morbidity and mortality of our patients. This study aimed to determine direct and indirect variables that affect mortality on the waiting list in our transplant center. Materials and Methods: We did a retrospective observational study in which we reviewed the clinical charts of the 116 patients who died in the liver transplant list between 2015 and 2021. We described the stage of cirrhosis, its complications and the cause of death. For the analysis of the results, we performed a statistical description. Results: Between 2015 and 2021, 116 patients died on the liver transplant waiting list. The cause of cirrhosis was autoimmune disease in 42%of the patients, 75% were CHILD C and 39.7% had MELD >25. The main cause of death was an infection, and the main complications of cirrhosis were ascites (84.5%), encephalopathy (59.5%) and variceal hemorrhage (39.7%). Between 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 infection was documented in 16.7% of deceased patients. Conclusions: Infection in patients on the waiting list is the main cause of death before transplantation. It has been documented in the literature that one-year mortality, according to the Meld score, is 30% and 50% for scores of 20-29 and 30-39, respectively. Because of this reason, liver transplantation is the only alternative to impact the survival of these patients. The pandemic contingency affected the care of patients with terminal liver disease, reducing the number of transplants performed because of the lower donation rate. Being pioneers in Colombia of living donor transplantation, it was possible to mitigate the low availability of organs during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in 2020 -2021, 38% of the transplants performed in our center were from a living donor. |
