Acute allograft rejection in liver transplant recipients: lack of correlation with loss of hepatic artery diastolic flow.

Eighty hepatic artery Doppler ultrasound (US) examinations performed in 49 patients after liver transplantation were retrospectively analyzed to determine if loss of diastolic flow correlated with pathologic evidence of acute allograft rejection. All 80 Doppler examinations were performed within 7 days of hepatic needle biopsy. Forty-three Doppler waveforms from 27 patients showed normal diastolic flow. Seventeen Doppler studies in 17 patients showed complete absence of diastolic flow. Review of biopsy results for each group showed no significant difference in the proportion of acute allograft rejection present (42% for the normal group and 46% for the group lacking diastolic flow). The data from 53 US and biopsy examinations performed 2 days apart in 37 patients confirmed the lack of correlation between absent hepatic artery diastolic blood flow and rejection. The authors conclude that the loss of hepatic artery diastolic flow has no apparent clinical application for the diagnosis of acute hepatic allograft rejection.