*Purpose: To compare the efficacy and safety of once daily prolonged release tacrolimus compared to twice daily tacrolimus in liver transplantation patients

*Methods: Medline, EMBASE, CENTRAL databases were searched for identification of clinical trials with English language restriction. Efficacy was measured as the rate of treatment failure indicated by biopsy-proven acute rejection (BPAR), liver graft loss, or death and safety was assessed by adverse events. Two reviewers independently selected studies, collected data and assessed risk of bias. We reported the results as risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) for dichotomous data.

*Results: A total of six studies included with 1036 patients. All the included studies were of moderate quality according to the risk of bias assessment using Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Acute rejection confirmed by biopsy was reported in three studies, and pooled analysis of those studies indicated similar rejections in both twice daily and once daily tacrolimus groups (risk ratio [RR] 1.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.83 to 1.38). Similarly, there was similar number of adverse events such as hypertension, headache, back pain, blood related disorders, infections and nausea observed in both groups.

*Conclusions: Our systematic review and meta-analysis confirms that both once daily and twice daily tacrolimus formulations are comparable in terms of efficacy and safety outcomes

« Back to 2020 American Transplant Congress