ObjectiveTo investigate the associations of preoperative red cell distribution width (RDW) with mortality and morbidity in patients underwent liver transplantation. MethodsThis investigation was a retrospective study, the patients underwent liver transplantation met the inclusion criteria from June 2017 to May 2020 in the West China Hospital of Sichuan University were enrolled. The patients were divided into RDW≤14.5% group and RDW>14.5% group according to the normal RDW critical value (14.5%). The propensity score matching (PSM) was used to adjust the baseline characteristics. The primary outcome was 1-year mortality. The secondary outcomes included 1-year survival, 30-day mortality, incidence of early allograft dysfunction, acute kidney injury, renal replacement therapy, and pulmonary complications, as well as ICU stay and postoperative hospital stay. ResultsA total of 303 patients who met the analysis conditions were included. After PSM, 57 patients in each group were matched. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the baseline data such as the gender, age, body mass index (BMI), initial diagnosis, MELD score, Child-Pugh grade of the recipients, and the gender, age, and BMI of the donors (P>0.05). The 1-year [22.8% (13/57) versus 5.3% (3/57), χ2=7.27, P=0.007] and 30-day [15.8% (9/57) versus 3.5% (2/57), χ2=4.93, P=0.026] mortality of the patients with RDW >14.5% were higher than that of the patients with RDW ≤14.5% . The Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the 1-year survival of the patients with RDW ≤14.5% after liver transplantation was better than that of the patients with RDW >14.5% [hazard ratio=4.75, 95%CI (1.78, 12.67), P=0.007], but there were no significant differences between the two groups in the incidence of early graft dysfunction, acute renal injury, renal replacement therapy, and pulmonary complications, as well as postoperative hospital stay and ICU stay (P>0.05). ConclusionPreliminary results of this study indicate that preoperative RDW of patients underwent allogeneic liver transplantation is associated with1-year mortality, 30-day mortality, and 1-year survival.