Underutilization of palliative care services in the liver transplant population

Table 1 Baseline characteristics of 107 patients who died or were delisted for being too sick for transplant

	n = 107
Age at listing, yr	58 (53-63)
Male sex	71 (66%)
Ethnicity
White	57 (53.3%)
Hispanic	24 (22.4%)
Asian	13 (12.1%)
Black	10 (9.3%)
Other	3 (2.8%)
MELD at time of listing	16 (12-23)
Etiology of cirrhosis
Alcohol related	12 (11%)
Hepatitis C	44 (41%)
Alcohol + hepatitis C	21 (20%)
Other	30 (28%)
Child-pugh score at de-listing
A	16 (15%)
B	26 (24.3%)
C	65 (60.7%)
HCC	56 (52%)
Education level
College degree or less	100 (93.5%)
Graduate level degree	7 (6.5%)

MELD: Model for end-stage liver disease; HCC: Hepatocellular cancer.

Table 2 Factors associated with palliative care consultation, univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis

Factor	Univariable analysis		Multivariable analysis
	OR (95%CI)	P value	OR (95%CI)	P value
Age, per year	0.92 (0.87-0.98)	< 0.01	0.92 (0.87-0.98)	0.02
Male sex	0.76 (0.27-2.16)	0.61	-	-
White race	3.74 (1.14-12.26)	0.03	4.90 (1.30-18.30)	0.02
MELD at listing	1.06 (1.01-1.12)	0.02	1.00 (0.97-1.10)	0.39
MELD at delisting	1.05 (1.00-1.10)	0.01	1.00 (0.97-1.10)	0.34
Etiology of liver disease
Alcohol related	Reference	Reference
Hepatitis C	0.95 (0.17-5.28)	0.95	-	-
Alcohol + hepatitis C	1.56 (0.25-9.65)	0.63
Other	0.77 (0.12-4.88)	0.78
Child-pugh score at delisting
A	Reference	Reference
B	0.60 (0.03-10.30)	0.73	-	-
C	4.90 (0.60-40.10)	0.14
HCC	0.89 (0.32-2.46)	0.83	-	-
College or lower level of education (vs graduate level)	1.23 (0.14-10.9)	0.85	-	-
Private insurance (vs government)	0.70 (0.25-1.97)	0.50	-	-
English language	0.93 (0.24-3.65)	0.92	-	-

MELD: Model for end-stage liver disease; HCC: Hepatocellular cancer.