Background Retransplantation candidates are disadvantaged owing to lack of good-quality liver grafts. Strategies that can facilitate transplantation of suboptimal grafts into retransplant candidates require investigation. The aim was to determine whether late liver retransplantation can be performed safely with suboptimal grafts, following normothermic machine perfusion. Methods A prospectively enrolled group of patients who required liver retransplantation received a suboptimal graft preserved via normothermic machine perfusion. This group was compared with both historical and contemporaneous cohorts of patient who received grafts preserved by cold storage. The primary outcome was 6-month graft and patient survival. Results The normothermic machine perfusion group comprised 26 patients. The historical (cold storage 1) and contemporaneous (cold storage 2) groups comprised 31 and 25 patients respectively. The 6-month graft survival rate did not differ between groups (cold storage 1, 27 of 31, cold storage 2, 22 of 25; normothermic machine perfusion, 22 of 26; P = 0.934). This was despite the normothermic machine perfusion group having significantly more steatotic grafts (8 of 31, 7 of 25, and 14 of 26 respectively; P = 0.006) and grafts previously declined by at least one other transplant centre (5 of 31, 9 of 25, and 21 of 26; P < 0.001). Conclusion In liver retransplantation, normothermic machine perfusion can safely expand graft options without compromising short-term outcomes.

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Introduction Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a serious complication of liver cirrhosis which presents with hepatic and/or extrahepatic organ failure and often needs admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This condition typically needs organ support and carries a high mortality rate. ICU care may not benefit these patients. There are many scores to assess prognosis in these patients, such as the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score, the MELD score refined to take into account serum sodium level (MELD-Na), the chronic liver failure organ failure (CLIF-OF) score, the CLIF Consortium acute-on-chronic liver failure (CLIF-C ACLF) score and the Child-Turcotte-Pugh classification. This study was conducted to compare CLIF-C ACLF and MELD scores for selecting patients at risk of high mortality, as ICU care to these patients in the absence of liver transplantation may be of no value.

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