Healthcare Resource Utilization After Living Liver Donation: A Retrospective Case-Control Study

Living liver donation is generally considered safe, but donors may experience short- or long-term complications. The purpose of this study was to assess healthcare resource utilization after liver donation in living liver donors in comparison with the general population.

Outpatient or emergency department visits and hospital admissions were compared between living liver donors who underwent hepatic resection for living liver donation between 2004 and 2018 and the matched general population. Healthcare resource utilization data for 5 y after liver donation were collected from the National Health Insurance Service database. For every living liver donor, 4 individually matched nondonors were selected from the National Health Insurance Service database using age, sex, preexisting comorbidities, and previous healthcare utilization history.

A total of 1886 living liver donors and 7309 nondonors were included. In the first year after donation, living liver donors required more outpatient department visits (7 [4-13] versus 3 [1-7], P < 0.001) and more emergency department visits (13.33% versus 0.15%, P < 0.001) compared with matched nondonors. A similar trend persisted for 5 y after donation. The number of hospital admissions of living liver donors was higher for up to 2 y after donation with longer hospital length of stay (13.0 [10.5-16.0] d versus 5.0 [3.0-9.0] d, P < 0.0001).

Healthcare resource utilization in living liver donors for 5 y after donation was higher compared with matched nondonors. The higher healthcare resource demand may be related to postoperative complications or lowered threshold for healthcare resource utilization after donation.