Ten, 15, and 20-year protocol LBs from 147 patients surviving for >20 years were reviewed. Twenty-year biopsy findings were correlated with clinical data.
Twenty-year-biopsy patients (N = 91) and 20-year-non-biopsy patients (N = 56) were similar in terms of transplant data, adverse events, and liver function tests (LFTs). Twenty-year LBs revealed a 90%prevalence of abnormalities, among which viral chronic hepatitis (VCH) was the most common (46%). Between 15 and 20 years, hepatic structural abnormalities were the only disorder to increase (p = 0.008). An individual progression of abnormalities occurred in 56%of patients. At 20 years, the negative and positive predictive values (PV) of LFTs with respect to histological abnormalities were 95%and 18%, respectively; in VCH, Fibrotest and transient elastography displayed poor discriminative ability for fibrosis (80%and 81%discordance, respectively), but were satisfactory regarding significant fibrosis (negative PV of 77.7%and 80%, respectively). A decrease in immunosuppression was less frequent (14/91 vs. 20/56, p = 0.008) while an increase was more common (15/91 vs. 2/56, p = 0.017) in 20-year-biopsy patients than in non-biopsy patients. Antiviral therapy was administered in seven of the 20-year biopsy patients, but in none of the non-biopsy patients (p = 0.04).
Twenty-year LBs provided important histological information on graft function that was available to a limited degree from LFTs and non-invasive markers. They exerted an impact on immunosuppressive and antiviral therapies.