Unfair Advantages for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients Listed for Liver Transplant in Short-Wait Regions Following 2015 Hepatocellular Carcinoma Policy Change.

For patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) listed for liver transplantation (LT), United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) enacted policy changes in 2015 to improve equity between HCC and non-HCC patients. We evaluated the impact of these changes on regional disparities in wait-list dropout and LT. We included patients in the UNOS database listed with Model for End-Stage Liver Disease HCC exceptions in long-wait regions (LWRs), mid-wait regions (MWRs), and short-wait regions (SWRs) before these policy changes (era 1, January 1 to December 31, 2013) and after (era 2, October 7, 2015, to October 7, 2016). Cumulative incidence of wait-list dropout and LT were evaluated using competing risk regression. Median time to LT increased by 3.6 months (3.1 to 6.7 months) in SWRs and 1.3 months (6.9 to 8.2 months) in MWRs (P < 0.001), with a slight decrease in LWRs (13.4 to 12.9 months; P = 0.02). The 2-year cumulative incidence of dropout increased from 9.7% to 14.8% in SWRs (P = 0.03) and from 18.9% to 22.6% in MWRs (P = 0.18) but decreased in LWRs from 26.7% to 24.8% (P = 0.31). Factors predicting wait-list dropout included listing in era 2 (hazard ratio [HR], 1.17), in LWRs (HR, 2.56), and in MWRs (HR, 1.91). Regional differences in wait-list outcomes decreased with policy changes, but HCC patients in SWRs remain advantaged. Recent policy change may narrow these disparities.