INTRODUCTION: Early mortality in pediatric patients after liver transplantation (30 days) may be due to surgical and anesthetic perioperative factors. OBJECTIVE: To identify anesthetic risk factors associated with early mortality in pediatric patients who undergo liver transplantation (OLT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study of all patients who underwent a deceased or living donor liver transplantation evaluated demographic variables of age, weight, gender, degree of malnutrition, and etiology, as well as qualitative variables of anesthesia time, bleeding, massive transfusion, acid-base balance, electrolyte and metabolic disorders, as well as graft prereperfusion postreperfusion characteristics. Chi-square tests with corresponding odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals as well as Interactions were tested among significant variables using multivariate logistic regression models. P < or =.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: We performed 64 OLT among whom early death occurred in 20.3% (n = 13). There were deaths associated with malnutrition (84.6% vs 43.6%) in the control group (P < .01); massive bleeding, 76.9% (n = 10) versus 25.8% in the control group (P < .05) including transfusions in 84.6% (n = 11) versus 43.6% in the control group (P < .03); preperfusion metabolic acidosis in 84.6% (n = 11) versus 72.5% (n = 37; P < .05); posttransplant hyperglycemia in 69.2% (n = 9) versus 23.5% (n = 12; P < .01); and postreperfusion hyperlactatemia in 92.3% (n = 12) versus 68.6% (n = 35; P < .045). CONCLUSION: Prereperfusion metabolic acidosis, postreperfusion hyperlactatemia, and hyperglycemia were significantly more prevalent among patients who died early. However, these factors were exacerbated by malnutrition, bleeding, and massive transfusions. Postreperfusion hypokalemia and hypernatremia showed high but not significant frequencies in both groups.