The vexing triad of obesity, alcohol, and coagulopathy predicts the need for multiple operations in liver transplantation.

INTRODUCTION

One in four liver transplants (LT) require return to the operating room(R-OR) within 48 h of surgery. We hypothesize that donor, recipient, and intraoperative factors will predict R-OR.

METHODS

LT recipients were enrolled in an observational study to measure coagulation with thrombelastography (TEG) were assessed with transplant recipient and donor variables for risk of R-OR.

RESULTS

160 recipients with a median age of 55 years and a MELD-Na of 22 were analyzed. R-OR occurred in 22%. Recipient BMI (p = 0.006), donor heavy alcohol use (p = 0.017), TEG MA (p = 0.013) during the anhepatic phase of surgery, TEG MA at anhepatic and 30-min after reperfusion (p < 0.05), and red blood cell transfusions (p < 0.001) were associated with R-OR.

CONCLUSION

The vexing triad of recipient obesity, heavy donor alcohol use, and low TEG MA were associated with a high rate of R-OR. Strategies to reduce this sub-optimal combination of risk factors could reduce the frequency of unplanned re-operations.