| Location: | The Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York |
| Director: | P.Sheiner, M.D. |
| Address: | The Mount Sinai Medical Center The Mount Sinair Hospital Box 1104, One Gustave L. Levy Place New York, NY 10029-6574 |
| Profile: | The purpose of this registry is to facilitate the ongoing large-scake study of patients with recurrent hepatitis C after a liver transplant. More ... |
| Patient Records: for viewing only | Available to all CenterSpan members |
| Patient Entry - Follow Up Record: | online form |
| Doctor E-mail and Patient SSN Registration: | online form |
The purpose of this registry is to facilitate the ongoing large-scale study of patients with recurrent hepatitis C after a liver transplant.
End-stage liver disease from hepatitis C has become the main indication of liver transplantation. Unfortunately, in approximately 95% of patients who undergo transplantation for this indication, the virus remains detectable in serum, and clinical recurrence of hepatitis C in the new liver has been reported in up to 45% of patients after OLT. In some instances, recurrence results in severe liver disease leading to retransplantation or death.
Because the hepatitis C virus itelse was only identified in 1989, the natural history of recurrent hepatitis C after transplant is not well know, and long-term follow-up is not yet available. In addition to virus levels and genotypes, it is very likely that immunosuppressive medications and the host immune response also have important roles in modulating the disease process after transplant. In most cases, individual transplant centers do not have large enough populations of patients with recurrent disease to fully evaluate the course of this process.
In April, 1997, liver transplant surgeons and hepatologists from 15 centers met in New York City to participate, with support from Ortho Biotech, Inc., in a roundtable on "Risk Factors for Recurrence of Hepatitis C after Liver Transplant." Prior to this meeting, participants completed data sheets on more than 600 liver recipients transplanted for hepatitis C. Participants have unanimously recognized that we are faced now with an excellent opportunity not only to study more than 600 patients with a relatively new yet very significant virus but also to continue to follow these patients' course. Each participating center has expressed interest in continuing to enter data over time, and other centers have asked to be allowed to enter their patients into our study as well.
Our preliminary findings suggest that approximately 50% of patients transplanted for hepatitis C develop recurrent disease in their new liver. Still unknown is whether the disease progresses over time and whether we might be able to predict which patients will develop more rapidly progressive or more severe disease. The answers to these questions will permit us to develop more focused treatment strategies and to attempt to prevent the recurrence of hepatitis C after liver transplantation.
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