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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): 108376
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v15.i4.108376
Published online Dec 18, 2025. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v15.i4.108376
Donor-recipient age mismatch and outcomes in liver transplantation: A scientific registry of transplant recipients database analysis
Bima J Hasjim, Hirohito Ichii, Robert R Redfield, David K Imagawa, Department of Surgery, UC Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, United States
Shi-Yi Chen, Department of Biostatistics, University of Toronto, Toronto M5G 1L7, Ontario, Canada
Naomi KT Hlaing, Mamatha Bhat, Ajmera Transplant Centre, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto M5G 2N2, Ontario, Canada
Author contributions: Hasjim BJ, Chen SY, and Bhat M participated in the concept, design of the study, provided administrative, technical, or material support; Hasjim BJ, Chen SY, Hlaing NKT, Ichii H, Redfield RR, Imagawa DK, and Bhat M assisted in the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, and provided critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; Hasjim BJ and Chen SY drafted the manuscript; Chen SY conducted the statistical analysis; Bhat M supervised the project; and all authors approved the final version of the manuscript that was submitted.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of University of California, approval No. #4474.
Informed consent statement: The need for signed informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board at University of California.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are publicly available through the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (https://www.srtr.org/about-the-data/the-srtr-database/).
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: Bima J Hasjim, Department of Surgery, UC Irvine, 3800 Chapman Ave, Orange, CA 92868, United States. bjhasjim@gmail.com
Received: April 15, 2025
Revised: May 23, 2025
Accepted: July 2, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 217 Days and 22.5 Hours
Revised: May 23, 2025
Accepted: July 2, 2025
Published online: December 18, 2025
Processing time: 217 Days and 22.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: The aging general population has led to changes in liver transplant (LT) recipient and donor demographics. In addition to older recipient age, older allografts are increasingly utilized to keep up with the demand for LT. In this study, we found that older donor:recipient age pairs were associated with a lower likelihood of improving functional status and distinct patterns of cause-specific mortality. Notably, graft- and infection-related mortality were strongly dependent on allograft age, whereas cardioneurovascular- and malignancy-related mortality were more linked with recipient age. These findings highlight the importance of age dynamics in LT and may inform age-matched organ allocation strategies.