The latest annual report available on the site listed in the LAG notes is for 2019. Below are the key points with some explanation and warnings.

The first warning is that all liver patients are different, you cannot translate the data from 8,740 other patients as anything other than general. There will always be extremes both good and bad.

The report presents key figures about liver transplantation in the UK. The period reported covers ten years of transplant data, from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2019. The report presents information of patients on the transplant list, number of transplants, demographic characteristics of donors and transplant recipients, and survival post registration and post first liver transplant. The data are reported both on a national and centre-specific basis, where relevant. There is currently no significant difference between national results and those for King’s.

The national allocation scheme was in effect from 1 April 2018, so this is the first set of results indicating the impact of the new scheme. The increase in the number of patients being transplanted within 2 years of listing would be seen as a success but there is an issue on the treatment of cancer patients that is being further investigated.

On 31 March 2019, there were 432 patients on the UK active transplant list, which represents an 20% increase in the number of patients a year earlier. There was however a 32% reduction in 2018 to an extreme low.

Of those patients joining the elective liver only waiting list, approximately 79% had received a transplant within two years of listing, which represents a 5% improvement on the prior period.

There were 8740 liver transplants performed in the UK in the ten year period.

The number of liver transplants using both donors after circulatory death and donors after brain death, have now stabilised. It is hoped that recent policy changes regarding assumed consent will show improvement in future periods.

The unadjusted national rates of patient survival one and five years after first liver only transplantation are:

The unadjusted national rates of patient survival one and five years after joining the transplantation list for first liver only patients are:

The difference is due to the number of patients who are listed but do not proceed to transplantation due to death or other changes in condition

In summary, that the number of transplants increase each year and despite an increase in the complexity of some of the transplants carried out survival rates which are already excellent, improve too.

The report in its entirety is recommended but please remember not to over interpret the data to individual cases as there are big variations due to things like age at transplant and cause of liver failure.