Growing number of sickest patients removed from liver transplant wait list

Editor's Note

Liver transplant candidates who are the sickest and should be first in line for a donor liver are increasingly being removed from the wait list because they are considered too sick to transplant, finds this study.

Between 2007 and 2012, more than 4,300 patients were taken off the transplant list because of deteriorating illness. The numbers were nearly twice the 2,311 patients delisted between 2002 and 2007.

This rise in delisted patients comes on the heals of a 2007 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services regulatory policy that established expectations for safe, high-quality transplant services.