Risk factors contributing to hepatic artery thrombosis following living-donor liver transplantation.
OBJECTIVE
This study was carried out to investigate the risk factors contributing to hepatic artery thrombosis in living-donor liver transplantation.


METHODS
Two hundred and twenty-two recipients (113 adults and 109 children) of living-donor liver transplantation were the subjects of this study. The diagnosis of hepatic artery thrombosis was made by color-Doppler ultrasonography and/or hepatic angiography. Parameters for this study were: (1) donor sex, age, and body weight; (2) recipient sex, age, body weight, liver disease, preoperative prothrombin time, and type of arterial reconstruction; and (3) previous liver transplantation.


RESULTS
Hepatic artery thrombosis occurred in 12 patients (5.4%) at 3 to 15 days posttransplant. Recipient female sex and metabolic disorder as the original disease were found to be significantly associated with hepatic artery thrombosis. The 5-year patient survival rate in recipients with hepatic artery thrombosis (58.3%) was significantly lower than that in recipients without this complication (84.4%).


CONCLUSIONS
Female sex and metabolic disease may be factors contributing to hepatic artery thrombosis after living-donor liver transplantation. More intensive anticoagulation therapy for this patient population might decrease the incidence of hepatic artery thrombosis and, thus, posttransplant recipient mortality.
Department of Surgery, Shinshu University School of Medicine, 3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan.
Toshihiko
T
Ikegami
Yasuhiko
Y
Hashikura
Yuichi
Y
Nakazawa
Koichi
K
Urata
Atsuyoshi
A
Mita
Yasunari
Y
Ohno
Masaru
M
Terada
Shin-Ichi
S
Miyagawa
Hideo
H
Kushima
Shoji
S
Kondoh
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000792:Angiography; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006499:Hepatic Artery; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D019520:Living Donors; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D015996:Survival Rate; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D018615:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Color