Objective: To investigate the correlated factors of early mortality after orthotopic liver transplantation.
Methods: The preoperative liver function, coagulative status, the graft's warm and cold ischemia times and the details of the operations of 42 patients were summarized retrospectively and the comparison between survival and death patients performed to analyse the correlated factors of early death after orthotopic liver transplantation.
Results: Thirteen of the 42 patients died early after the transplantation. Two died of vascular complication and two fo graft primary nonfunction. The comparison between those without identified causes (9 patients, in death group) and survivors (29 patients, in survival group) showed that the patients in death group had a poorer preoperative liver function and coagulative status than those in survival group, the blood loss was more than that in survival group, the length of time of operation, the duration of hypotension and anhepatic time were also longer than those in survival group.
Conclusion: The poorer preoperative liver function, and especially the coagulative status were the main causes of early mortality after orthotopic liver transplantation, the vascular complications and the graft primary nonfunction were the other reasons that led to some patients' deaths.