Publication:

Delta bilirubin: a sensitive and predictive marker for acute rejection in liver transplant recipients

Background This study was aimed to investigate the diagnostic utility of delta bilirubin for acute rejection in liver transplant recipients.

Methods The present study was conducted on 80 patients (56 men and 24 women) who were admitted for a major operation of liver transplantation at super-speciality hospital, Medanta-The Medicity, Gurgaon. The average age of the patients was 43±19 years. Data was analyzed as mean, standard deviation; student t test by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated in percentage.

Results The result from the present study indicates that delta bilirubin had highest sensitivities of 93% whereas conjugated bilirubin has 43% while AST, ALT, GGT and ALKP had sensitivities of 61%, 81%, 80% and 31% respectively. There was a significant difference of delta bilirubin between rejection and non rejection transplant recipients.

Conclusions Our findings supported that the serial measurement of delta bilirubin would be a reliable marker for recognizing early rejection in liver transplant recipients.