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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Dec 18, 2025; 15(4): 105621
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v15.i4.105621
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v15.i4.105621
YKL-40: Revolutionizing cardiac risk prediction and therapy in liver transplantation
Ileana Lulic, Ivan Durekovic, Jadranka Pavicic Saric, Iva Bacak Kocman, Zrinka Sarec, Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, Clinical Hospital Merkur, Zagreb 10000, Croatia
Ileana Lulic, Dinka Lulic, Dunja Rogic, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Hematology, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Zagreb 10000, Croatia
Dinka Lulic, Immediate Medical Care Unit, Saint James Hospital, Sliema SLM-1030, Malta
Dunja Rogic, Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia
Author contributions: Lulic I, Lulic D, and Rogic D participated in the conceptualization of this manuscript; Lulic I, Lulic D, Durekovic I, Pavicic Saric J, Bacak Kocman I, and Rogic D performed the literature review and data analysis; Lulic I, Lulic D, and Durekovic I designed the manuscript's original draft; Pavicic Saric J, Bacak Kocman I, Sarec Z, and Rogic D reviewed and edited the manuscript original draft; Lulic I, Lulic D, and Rogic D performed manuscript supervision and project administration; all of the authors approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to this manuscript.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ileana Lulic, MD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, Clinical Hospital Merkur, Zajceva 19, Zagreb 10000, Croatia. ileanalulic@gmail.com
Received: February 2, 2025
Revised: March 25, 2025
Accepted: April 15, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 292 Days and 9.7 Hours
Revised: March 25, 2025
Accepted: April 15, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 292 Days and 9.7 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: YKL-40 is a biomarker of cardiovascular dysfunction in liver transplant (LT) recipients, reflecting underlying inflammation, endothelial activation, and fibrosis. Its integration into cardiovascular risk models may improve perioperative stratification, complement existing screening tools, and support early identification of high-risk patients. Mechanistic insights and artificial intelligence–driven analytics support its future role in targeted risk reduction, while clinical adoption will require prospective validation, actionable thresholds, and structured incorporation into multimodal assessment frameworks to improve outcomes in LT recipients.