Prevalence of Postoperation Metabolic Syndrome in Pediatric Liver Transplant Patients: A Single Center Experience.

OBJECTIVES: Metabolic syndrome components, such as being overweight or having hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or diabetes mellitus, are common complications after liver transplant in pediatric patients with probable multifactorial causes and increase the risk of cardiovascular complications in adulthood. In this study, our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of these components both before and after transplant surgery.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Our study included all children having liver transplant at our institution over a period of 20 years who were under 18 years old and had at least 6 months of posttransplant follow-up. Prevalence of metabolic syndrome components and pretransplant and posttransplant laboratory data of patients were evaluated.

RESULTS: Over the 20-year study period, 391 liver transplant patients were included in our study, in which 167 were girls (42.7%) and 224 were boys (57.3%). Patients showed a posttransplant hyperlipidemia rate of 7.5%, hyperglycemia rate of 22%, hypertension rate of 9.6%, and metabolic syndrome rate of 50.2%. Pretransplant, the rate of patients with metabolic syndrome was 10.5%.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirmed that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients after liver transplant increases dramatically and should be explored with further research.