Background: We previously demonstrated that patients with high MELD scores required significantly higher volumes of blood transfusion and vasopressor usage during orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) compared with patients with low MELD scores. Now we investigated whether hyponatremia or ascites were associated with increased transfusion and vasopressor requirements during OLT.

Methods: Medical records of 192 OLT patients between January 1, 2004, and May 5, 2005, were retrospectively reviewed. Intraoperative transfusion of red blood cells (RBC) or fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and administration of vasopressors were compared.

Results: As expected, patients with high (>30) MELD scores were associated with higher requirements for intraoperative transfusion and vasopressors than those with low ( or 30) MELD plus ascites scores (MELD+A, 4.5 points added to MELD if ascites was present) had higher requirements for transfusion and vasopressors compared with patients with low (

Conclusions: Although hyponatremia and ascites are indicators for liver disease severity, ascites, but not hyponatremia, is associated with increased intraoperative transfusion and vasopressor requirements during OLT.