Objective  To investigate the risk factors of hemorrhage after ultrasound-guided liver graft biopsy.

  Methods  Clinical data of 51 liver transplant patients undergoing ultrasound-guided liver graft biopsy in the Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University between February 2013 and April 2014 were retrospectively studied. Hemorrhage after biopsy was taken the dependent variable. Age, gender, coagulation, duration of biopsy, frequency of biopsy, number of biopsy tissues, medication of anticoagulant or not and cooperation in breathing and breath holding or not were taken as the independent variables. Multivariate non-conditional Logistic regression analysis was performed for all independent variables to screen out the risk factors associated with hemorrhage after ultrasound-guided liver graft biopsy.

  Results  Fifty-one patients underwent 84 biopsies in total and 5 cases (6%) had hemorrhage after biopsy. The multivariate non-conditional Logistic regression analysis showed that obvious hemorrhagic tendency, medication of anticoagulant and poor cooperation in breathing were independent risk factors of hemorrhage after liver graft biopsy (OR was respectively 8.71, 3.16 and 2.03, all in P < 0.05).

  Conclusions  Obvious hemorrhagic tendency, medication of anticoagulant and poor cooperation in breathing are independent risk factors of hemorrhage after ultrasound-guided liver graft biopsy.