Excellent liver transplant survival rates under the MELD/PELD system

The MELD/PELD (M/P) system for liver allocation was implemented on February 27, 2002, in the United States. Since then sufficient time has elapsed to allow for assessment of posttransplant survival rates under this system. We analyzed 4163 deceased donor liver transplants performed between February 27, 2002, and December 31, 2003, for whom follow-up reporting was 95% and 67% complete at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed 1-year patient and graft survival rates for status 1 of 76.9% and 70.4%, respectively, and 87.3% and 82.9% for patients prioritized by M/P (P < .0001 for status 1 vs M/P). When adult candidates were stratified by MELD score quartile at transplant, 1-year survival rates were 89.5%, 88.3%, 86.6%, and 78.1% for lowest to highest quartile (P = .0002) and graft survival rates were similarly distributed (85.0%, 84.5%, 82.7%, 73.0%, P < .0001). Candidates with hepatocellular cancer (89.6%) and other MELD score exceptions (88.8%) had slightly higher 1-year survival rates compared with standard MELD recipients (86.0%), which did not reach statistical significance (P = .089). Pediatric recipients had slightly better patient (88.7%) and graft (86.5%) survival rates at 1 year than adults but there were no significant differences among the PELD strata due to small numbers of patients in each PELD quartile. We conclude that patient and graft survival have remained excellent since implementation of the MELD/PELD system. Although recipients with MELD scores in the highest quartile have reduced survival compared with other quartiles, their 1-year survival rate is acceptable when their extreme risk of dying without a transplant is taken into consideration.