Introduction:

Complications related to biliary anastomosis are recognized as the first cause of post-liver transplantation morbidity and can negatively affect patient survival.

Objective:

To evaluate the behavior of long-term survival in patients with post-transplant biliary complications.

Methods:

An observational, longitudinal, and retrospective study was carried out in 152 patients with liver transplantation between 1999-2019, the following were excluded: patients with survival less than 72 hours, retransplants and patients with hepatic artery thrombosis. The variables studied were age and sex of the recipients, pre-transplant etiology, MELD index (Model for End Stage Liver Desease), biliary anastomosis technique, type of biliary complication, time of onset and treatment used. The categorical variables were related using the Chi square statistical test and Fisher's exact test, with significant differences when p <0.05; In the study of quantitative variables, the T-Student test was applied and Kaplan - Meier curves were used for survival analysis.

Results:

They were significantly related to the presence of biliary complication, a higher MELD index score (p = 0.008) and the end-to-end anastomosis technique (p = 0.039). Early biliary complications (66.7%) and anastomotic stenosis (58.7%) predominated. Treatment by endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) was the most used (68.2%). Patients with biliary complications had a mean survival of 10.9 years (95% CI 8.75-13.19), while patients without it had a mean of 9 years (95% CI 7.03 -10.98); there was no significant difference (p = 0.24).

Conclusions:

Biliary complications were an important cause of post-transplant morbidity, but without affecting patient survival.

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