Infections in human liver recipients: different patterns early and late after transplantation

Abstract

Abstract. The first 49 consecutive patients who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation between 1984 and 1989 in our department were studied with regard to symptomatic and asymptomatic post-transplantation infections. The major infections carrying a risk of fatal outcome are presented. During the first 4 weeks, fungal and bacterial infections predominated, the percentages of patients affected being 27 % and 35 %, respectively. Eight patients (17%) suffered from bacterial septicemia, which in six cases was due to gram-negative micro-organisms. The bacterial septicemia was often associated with severe ischemic damage to the graft, rejection, or cholangitis. In addition, a concomitant invasive fungal infection supervened in seven out of eight septic patients, further aggravating the patients' condition. Seventeen of the 49 patients (35%) died after transplantation within 3.3 years. Infection was the cause of death in nine patients (18%), with bacterial septicemia and/or fungemia in eight of these. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease was the dominant cause of illness after the 1st month. While only 5 of the 49 patients developed CMV disease during the 1st month (10 %), as many as 16 of the 40 recipients who survived beyond that time suffered from symptomatic CMV viremia (40%). CMV mismatching, i.e., the donation of a CMV-positive organ to a CMV-seronegative recipient, entailed the highest risk for CMV disease. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia occurred within 4 months in 10% of the patients. The four liver recipients affected were among the 20 patients not receiving trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole prophylaxis. None of the 28 patients who received this prophylaxis over a 12-month period developed this complication (P < 0.05). The time-related panorama of infectious complications observed in this study has immediate clinical implications for the screening, prophylaxis, and therapy of infections following liver transplantation.