Early Post-Operative Doppler Ultrasound as A Predictive Factor for Vascular Complications after Liver Transplantation

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of early postoperative Doppler ultrasound (DUS) for vascular thrombosis after liver transplantation and to evaluate its impact on clinical outcome. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study examined 219 patients who underwent liver transplantation at a single reference institution. The results of early postoperative DUS were compared with angiographic, clinical and surgical data through a medical records review. The sensitivity and specificity of DUS for diagnosing vascular complications in the hepatic arteries and portal vein were calculated. Results: DUS diagnosed vascular complications in 23 out of 210 included patients (10.9%). For the diagnosis of arterial and portal vein complications (stenosis/thrombosis), DUS showed respectively sensitivity of 75% and 90.9% and specificities of 96% and 100%. Overall mortality rate was 10.5% and patients who presented vascular alterations at early postoperative DUS presented a higher mortality (21.7%) rate than those with normal DUS (9.0%), although with no statistically significant difference (p=0.074). Conclusion: DUS is a valuable tool for early vascular complication diagnosis, with high specificit