Protective role of tacrolimus, deleterious role of age and comorbidities in liver transplant recipients with Covid-19: results from the ELITA/ELTR multi-center European study.

Abstract Background and aims Despite concerns that liver transplant (LT) recipients may be at increased risk of unfavorable outcomes from COVID-19 due the high prevalence of co-morbidities, immunosuppression and ageing, a detailed analysis of their effects in large studies is lacking Methods Data from adult LT recipients with laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV2 infection were collected across Europe. All consecutive patients with symptoms were included in the analysis, Results Between March 1st and June 27th2020, data from 243 adult symptomatic cases from 36 centers and 9 countries were collected. Thirty-nine (16%) were managed as outpatients while 204 (84%) required hospitalization including admission to the ICU (39/204, 19.1%). Forty-nine (20.2%) patients died after a median of 13.5 (10-23) days, respiratory failure was the major cause. After multivariable Cox regression analysis, age > 70 (HR 4.16; 95%CI 1.78-9.73) had a negative effect and tacrolimus (TAC) use (HR 0.55; 95%CI 0.31-0.99) had a positive independent effect on survival. The role of co-morbidities was strongly influenced by the dominant effect of age where comorbidities increased with the increasing age of the recipients. In a second model excluding age, both diabetes (HR 1.95; 95%CI 1.06 - 3.58) and chronic kidney disease (HR 1.97; 95%CI 1.05 - 3.67) emerged as associated with death Conclusions Twenty-five per cent of patients requiring hospitalization for Covid-19 died, the risk being higher in patients older than 70 and with medical co-morbidities, such as impaired renal function and diabetes. Conversely, the use of TAC was associated with a better survival thus encouraging clinicians to keep TAC at the usual dose.