Survival in Liver Transplant Recipients with Hepatitis B- or Hepatitis C-Associated Hepatocellular Carcinoma: The Chinese Experience from 1999 to 2010

Hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC) and hepatitis C virus (HCV)-HCC are the main indications for liver transplantation. We compared differences in survival outcomes between these two conditions.The China Liver Transplant Registry (CLTR) contains data collated from all transplants performed in 86 liver transplantation centers across China. We analyzed CLTR data from January 1999 to December 2010. In all, 7,658 patients (7,162 with HBV-HCC and 496 with HCV-HCC) were included in this study. Clinical characteristics were compared between the HBV-HCC and HCV-HCC groups; Kaplan–Meier analysis was used to calculate the overall, tumor-free and hepatitis-free survival rates. The 1-year, 3-year and 5-year overall survival was significantly higher in HBV-HCC recipients than in HCV-HCC recipients (76.65%, 56.61% and 49.10% vs. 64.59%, 42.78% and 39.20%, respectively; P<0.001). The corresponding tumor-free survival rates (63.55%, 47.37%, 40.99% vs. 56.84%, 38.04%, 35.66%, respectively) and hepatitis-free survival rates (75.49%, 54.84%, 47.34% vs. 63.87%, 42.15%, 39.33%, respectively) were both superior in HBV-HCC recipients (both P