The Outcome of a Centralization Program in Biliary Atresia: Twenty Years and Beyond

Biliary atresia is a rare disease and reported outcomes of surgical management, typically a Kasai portoenterostomy (KPE), vary considerably across the world. Centralization has been proposed to improve this.

A national centralization program was started in January 1999, involving 3 English units with colocated liver transplant facilities. As the program has now reached the 20-year point, the main aim was to update outcome statistics and identify trends.

Prospective registry and database. The main measures of outcome were (1) time to KPE, (2) clearance of jaundice (CoJ), defined as reaching a bilirubin value of <20 µmol/L (≈1.5 mg/dL), and (3) actuarial native liver survival and overall survival (OS). Data are quoted as median (interquartile range) and nonparametric statistical comparison used with P <0.05 regarded as statistically significant.

A total of 867 infants were born with biliary atresia and managed between January 1999 and December 2019. Death occurred without intervention (n = 10, 1.1%) or were subject to primary transplant (n = 26, 3.0%); leaving 831 (95.9%) infants who underwent KPE at a median age of 51 (interquartile range: 39-64) days. Age at KPE reduced over the period ( P = 0.0001) becoming 48 (35-57) days in the last 5-year era. CoJ was achieved in 505/831 (60.6%), also increasing over the period ( P = 0.002). Forty-two (5.0%) died post-KPE and 384 were transplanted, leaving 405 alive with their native livers at the last follow-up. Of the 412 children transplanted, there were 23 (5.6%) deaths, leaving 387 alive. Five-year and 10-year native liver survivals were 51.3% (95% CI: 54.8-47.8) and 46.5% (95% CI: 50.1-42.9) and OSs were 91.5% (95% CI 93.2-89.4) and 90.5% (95% CI 92.3-88.2%), respectively.

There have been continued improvements in efficiency over the period of centralization with a significant reduction in time to KPE and improved CoJ after KPE. OS in this disease remains >90%.