After my transplant I have always assumed the underlying cause was still in play so the PSC would eventually rear its ugly head. It has been 9 years and so far so good. What have others experienced and what does the research show?
There seems to be at present no certainty at to the cause of PSC, Anoveractive immune system and/or genitive factors as suspected.
The transplanted liver may come form a donor who does not have these factors.
See article on:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16504713
Adrian
I'm 18 months post transplant and no recurrence. It is a small percentage that develop PSC in the new liver.
Celebrate your good fortune!
EAD3
Thanks for referencing that article Adrian. Some interesting facts. And congrats EAD3 on your transplant. Wishing continued good health for you.
From what I have read, reoccurring PSC in a donor liver is very rare. It is rare enough that a successful transplant is considered to be the only cure.
I hope that recurrance is in fact very rare, but the data in the literature is a bit inconsistant. I don't have the citations at hand but I have just dug into it fairly extensively as I now have recurrent PSC (rPSC) just shy of 2 years post transplant. The data from some reports says 10 to 20 percent chance and one report said much higher. Either way, keep testing for LFT's post transplant because it puts you in the unique position to be able to catch the onset of rPSC before any damage - then somehow get or beg vancomycin. That what I did and LFT's normalized completely. I read there was one soon to be published paper (New England Journal of Med i think) on another rPSC patient treated with Vanco. It expensive stuff and hard to get, but as well as the comfort that the odds are with you that it won't come back, there is the knowledge that there is an effective experimental treatment so you won't have to go through this horror again.
rjm