AASLD – The Liver Meeting^® 2015
Conference Research Round-Up

If patients with HCC receive a liver transplant too soon, the risk of cancer recurrence is increased. If the time to transplantation is too great, the risk of recurrence is also increased. The sweet spot duration between HCC diagnosis and transplantation is--

UNOS policies aim to get more livers to the sickest patients. But increasing non-ABO matched donations may lead to disproportionately higher death rates among some groups.

Pain is a significant problem for liver donors. So are opioids. What is the transplant team's best course?

Researchers have known that liver transplants often improve cognition. Now they know how.

For patients with two common liver diseases, that morning cup of Joe may be helping with more than just waking them up.

Patients with genotype 3 HCV infections have not benefitted as much as others from the introduction of direct-acting antivirals, but one combination may bring them into the 90%+ response rate club.

Liver transplant patients have high 30-day readmission rates, but expanding treatment options outside the hospital can help reduce the rate.

Patients at high risk of readmission can require greater resources to keep them out of the hospital. But how can hospitals identify them? For post-surgical patients with decompensated cirrhosis, a new model may help.

Both patients and hospitals want to avoid readmissions. For patients with cirrhosis, 3 simple steps can cut readmissions rates dramatically.

The U.S. epidemic of obesity and fatty liver disease has reduced the pool of qualified live liver donors. Perhaps the trend can be reversed by reducing the donors' body mass index  (BMI)—with a very low-calorie diet.

Decompensated liver disease makes treating hepatitis C infections more challenging—and more urgent. Adding ribavirin to HCV treatment may have multiple benefits for patients with this complication.

If a patient has a resistance-associated mutation that persists for nearly 2 years, what are the options for retreatment? One multi-targeted regimen holds promise.

Recurrent HCV infection after liver transplantation is associated with reduced response to conventional antiviral therapy, so current guidelines recommend use of regimens with ribavirin or extended treatment. New research suggests it may be time to reconsider those recommendations.

DAA therapy has been prioritized in HCV patients with cirrhosis to slow the clinical progression and possibly reverse liver damage. Has it worked?

Patients with hepatitis C virus genotype 3 have had few effective therapies to date, particularly if they have cirrhosis. That may soon change, based on a pair of phase 3 trials.

Hepatitis C researchers want to know who is least likely to succeed when treated with the newest drugs and regimens. But with nearly everyone achieving sustained virologic response on direct acting antivirals in clinical trials, answers have been hard to come by. Until now.

Failure on direct-acting antivirals may indicate a patient has a resistance-associated variant of the hepatitis C virus. One change to the therapy can turn around the results.