OBJECTIVETo investigate the relationship between hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) recurrence and hepatitis B virus (HBV) recurrence.

METHODSThe clinical data of 340 patients underwent liver transplantation due to HBV related end-stage liver disease and received long-term follow up in our hospital from Jan 2004 to Dec 2008 were retrospectively analyzed. All patients received nucleoside analogues therapy formally before entering into the waiting list and nucleoside analogues combined low-dose HBIG therapy during and after transplantation. Patients were regularly followed up at the outpatient, monitoring the HBV recurrence and survival. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the risk factors for hepatitis recurrence.

RESULTS33 patients suffered from HBV recurrence post transplantation. The 1-, 3- and 5- year recurrence rates were 7.0%, 10% and 13% respectively. The median HBV recurrence time was 5 months (1-21 months). COX regression analysis revealed that risk factors for HBV recurrence were HCC (HR = 2.98; 95% CI 1.08-8.25; P < 0.05) and pre-transplantation HBV-DNA load over 5 log10 copies/ml (HR = 3.99; 95% CI 1.85-8.62; P < 0.01). Further stratified analysis showed that patients who suffered from carcinoma recurrence had a higher incidence of HBV recurrence than those who did not, which were 27.9% and 8.7% (HR = 4.58;95% CI 1.88-11.12; P < 0.01) respectively. 12 patients suffered from both HCC and HBV recurrence. Spearman correlation analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between HBV and HCC recurrence times (r = 0.583, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSPost transplantation HCC recurrence is a risk factor for HBV recurrence.