Orthotopic liver transplantation for chronic hepatitis in two patients with common variable immunodeficiency.

Two patients with common variable immunodeficiency underwent orthotopic liver transplantation for chronic hepatitis, unequivocally caused by hepatitis C virus in one case. Although one patient had pneumonia 8 days after surgery and the other developed hepatic venular stenosis in the transplanted liver, both had a reasonably good quality of life for at least 15 months. However, both subsequently died of recurrent hepatitis C virus hepatitis or hemorrhage after splenectomy for hypersplenism. This shows that severe infection is not a major problem in patients with common variable immunodeficiency after liver transplantation provided they undergo prophylactic antimicrobial and immunoglobulin therapy. The longer term prognosis must be regarded as poor until more data are available following transplantation in similar patients.