Morphometric age and mortality after liver transplant.

Area of Science:

• Transplant Surgery
• Gerontology
• Medical Imaging Analysis

Background:

• Morphometric assessment is a key predictor of surgical outcomes.
• A gap exists in translating morphometric data into practical bedside decision-making for surgical risk.
• Morphometric age is a novel patient-centered surgical risk assessment tool.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between morphometric age and posttransplant survival.
• To determine if morphometric age can predict mortality risk after liver transplantation.
• To compare the predictive power of morphometric age versus chronologic age for transplant outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective cohort study of 348 liver transplant recipients and 3313 controls.
• Assessed morphometric characteristics of aging (psoas area, density, abdominal aortic calcification).
• Developed and applied a multivariate linear regression model to calculate morphometric age.

Main Results:

• Morphometric age significantly predicted overall mortality post-liver transplant (HR 1.03 per year, P < .001).
• Chronologic age was not a significant predictor of survival (HR 1.02 per year, P = .21).
• Morphometric age effectively stratified patients into high and low mortality risk groups, showing better discrimination than chronologic age.

Conclusions:

• Morphometric age is a significant independent predictor of mortality after liver transplantation.
• Morphometric age demonstrates superior discrimination of mortality risk compared to chronologic age.
• Assigning morphometric age could enhance the prediction of postoperative mortality risk for liver transplant candidates.