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Bajaj JS, Choudhury A, Kumaran V, Wong F, Seto WK, Alvares-Da-Silva MR, Desalgn H, Hayes PC, Idilman R, Topazian M, Torre A, Xie Q, George J, Kamath PS. Geographic disparities in access to liver transplant for advanced cirrhosis: Time to ring the alarm! Am J Transplant 2024; 24:733-742. [PMID: 38387623 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajt.2024.02.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2023] [Revised: 02/03/2024] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 02/24/2024]
Abstract
Decompensated cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer are major risk factors for mortality worldwide. Liver transplantation (LT), both live-donor LT or deceased-donor LT, are lifesaving, but there are several barriers toward equitable access. These barriers are exacerbated in the setting of critical illness or acute-on-chronic liver failure. Rates of LT vary widely worldwide but are lowest in lower-income countries owing to lack of resources, infrastructure, late disease presentation, and limited donor awareness. A recent experience by the Chronic Liver Disease Evolution and Registry for Events and Decompensation consortium defined these barriers toward LT as critical in determining overall survival in hospitalized cirrhosis patients. A major focus should be on appropriate, affordable, and early cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer care to prevent the need for LT. Live-donor LT is predominant across Asian countries, whereas deceased-donor LT is more common in Western countries; both approaches have unique challenges that add to the access disparities. There are many challenges toward equitable access but uniform definitions of acute-on-chronic liver failure, improving transplant expertise, enhancing availability of resources and encouraging knowledge between centers, and preventing disease progression are critical to reduce LT disparities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jasmohan S Bajaj
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Virginia Commonwealth University and Richmond VA Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
| | - Ashok Choudhury
- Department of Hepatology, Institute for Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi, India
| | - Vinay Kumaran
- Division of Transplant Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - Florence Wong
- Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Wai Kay Seto
- Department of Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Mario Reis Alvares-Da-Silva
- Department of Hepatology, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
| | - Hailemichael Desalgn
- Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit, St Paul's Hospital, Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Peter C Hayes
- Hepatology, Division of Health Sciences, Deanery of Clinical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Ramazan Idilman
- Department of Gastroenterology, Ankara University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey
| | - Mark Topazian
- Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit, St Paul's Hospital, Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Aldo Torre
- Department of Medicine, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Qing Xie
- Department of Infectious Diseases, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Jacob George
- Storr Liver Centre, Westmead Millennium Institute, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Patrick S Kamath
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
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Tsai SY, O'Leary JG. Optimizing Outcomes in Patients with Ascites Complicating Cirrhosis-Maximizing the Hour of Power. Dig Dis Sci 2024; 69:1080-1082. [PMID: 38217677 DOI: 10.1007/s10620-023-08255-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/15/2024]
Affiliation(s)
- Stephanie Y Tsai
- Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, University of Texas, Southwestern, Dallas, TX, USA
| | - Jacqueline G O'Leary
- Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, University of Texas, Southwestern, Dallas, TX, USA.
- Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Dallas VA Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
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Fernández J, Blasi A, Hidalgo E, Karvellas CJ. Bridging the critically ill patient with acute to chronic liver failure to liver transplantation. Am J Transplant 2024:S1600-6135(24)00223-5. [PMID: 38548058 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajt.2024.03.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2023] [Revised: 03/16/2024] [Accepted: 03/18/2024] [Indexed: 04/14/2024]
Abstract
Liver transplantation (LT) has emerged as an effective therapy for severe forms of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), an entity characterized by the development of multiorgan failure and high short-term mortality. The aim of critical care management of ACLF patients is to rapidly treat precipitating events and aggressively support failing organs to ensure that patients may successfully undergo LT or, less frequently, recover. Malnutrition and sarcopenia are frequently present, adversely impacting the prognosis of these patients. Management of critical care patients with ACLF is complex and requires the participation of different specialties. Once the patient is stabilized, a rapid evaluation for salvage LT should be performed because the time window for LT is often narrow. The development of sepsis and prolonged organ support may preclude LT or diminish its chances of success. The current review describes strategies to bridge severe ACLF patients to LT, highlights the minimal evaluation required for listing and the currently suggested contraindications to proceed with LT, and addresses different aspects of management during the perioperative and early posttransplant period.
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Affiliation(s)
- Javier Fernández
- Liver ICU, Liver Unit, Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, IDIBAPS and CIBERehd, Spain; EF Clif, EASL-CLIF Consortium, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Annabel Blasi
- Anesthesiology Department, Hospital Clínic, and University of Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ernest Hidalgo
- Hepatolobiliary Surgery Department, Hospital Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Constantine J Karvellas
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; Division of Gastroenterology (Liver Unit), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
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Saly DL, Allegretti AS, Ufere NN. The SILK Collaborative: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Serious Illness Communication for Patients with Liver Failure and AKI. Kidney360 2024; 5:456-458. [PMID: 38323851 PMCID: PMC11000718 DOI: 10.34067/kid.0000000000000382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 02/08/2024]
Affiliation(s)
- Danielle L. Saly
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Andrew S. Allegretti
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Nneka N. Ufere
- Liver Center, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
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Ge J, Sun S, Owens J, Galvez V, Gologorskaya O, Lai JC, Pletcher MJ, Lai K. Development of a Liver Disease-Specific Large Language Model Chat Interface using Retrieval Augmented Generation. medRxiv 2023:2023.11.10.23298364. [PMID: 37986764 PMCID: PMC10659484 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.10.23298364] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2023]
Abstract
Background Large language models (LLMs) have significant capabilities in clinical information processing tasks. Commercially available LLMs, however, are not optimized for clinical uses and are prone to generating incorrect or hallucinatory information. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is an enterprise architecture that allows embedding of customized data into LLMs. This approach "specializes" the LLMs and is thought to reduce hallucinations. Methods We developed "LiVersa," a liver disease-specific LLM, by using our institution's protected health information (PHI)-complaint text embedding and LLM platform, "Versa." We conducted RAG on 30 publicly available American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) guidelines and guidance documents to be incorporated into LiVersa. We evaluated LiVersa's performance by comparing its responses versus those of trainees from a previously published knowledge assessment study regarding hepatitis B (HBV) treatment and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance. Results LiVersa answered all 10 questions correctly when forced to provide a "yes" or "no" answer. Full detailed responses with justifications and rationales, however, were not completely correct for three of the questions. Discussions In this study, we demonstrated the ability to build disease-specific and PHI-compliant LLMs using RAG. While our LLM, LiVersa, demonstrated more specificity in answering questions related to clinical hepatology - there were some knowledge deficiencies due to limitations set by the number and types of documents used for RAG. The LiVersa prototype, however, is a proof of concept for utilizing RAG to customize LLMs for clinical uses and a potential strategy to realize personalized medicine in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jin Ge
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Steve Sun
- UCSF Health Information Technology, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Joseph Owens
- UCSF Health Information Technology, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Victor Galvez
- UCSF Health Information Technology, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Oksana Gologorskaya
- UCSF Health Information Technology, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
- Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Jennifer C. Lai
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Mark J. Pletcher
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
| | - Ki Lai
- UCSF Health Information Technology, University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
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