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Use and outcomes of hepatitis B virus–positive grafts in orthotopic liver transplantation in the United States from 1999 to 2021

The demand for orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is projected to increase, which indicates a need to expand the liver donor pool. We aimed to investigate the use of hepatitis B virus (HBV)–positive grafts and the outcomes of recipients undergoing OLT with HBV‐positive grafts. We conducted a retrospective cohort study analyzing all deceased donors and OLT recipients in the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network database from January 1999 through March 2021. Donor HBV status was positive if hepatitis B surface antigen was positive or HBV nucleic acid testing was detectable. Recipients of HBV‐positive allografts were matched 1:5 to recipients of HBV‐negative allografts based on recipient and donor age, transplant year, recipient sex, donation after circulatory death, recipient location, and Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease score at transplant. Among the 185,212 potential donors, 422 (0.2%) were HBV positive, and 265 (63%) of the HBV‐positive grafts were transplanted (14 of 265 [5.3%] in HBV‐positive recipients). The overall discard rate for HBV‐positive donors of 37.2% (157/422) remained significantly higher than the discard rate for HBV‐negative donors of 26.5% (49,026/185,212) during the study period (p < 0.001). Recipients of HBV‐positive (n = 209) grafts had similar mortality (log‐rank, p = 0.47) and graft loss (log‐rank, p = 0.72) rates to the matched recipients of HBV‐negative allografts (n = 1045). The 3‐year graft survival rate was 77.9% for the HBV‐positive group and 79.7% in the matched HBV‐negative group. Based on this analysis, transplant recipients of HBV‐positive liver allografts do not experience increased rates of mortality or graft loss. One strategy that may help expand the donor pool and lower the waitlist mortality rate is using HBV‐positive allografts.