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.
Ikegami
Toshihiko
T
Department of Surgery, Shinshu University School of Medicine, 3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan.
Hashikura
Yasuhiko
Y
Nakazawa
Yuichi
Y
Urata
Koichi
K
Mita
Atsuyoshi
A
Ohno
Yasunari
Y
Terada
Masaru
M
Miyagawa
Shin-Ichi
S
Kushima
Hideo
H
Kondoh
Shoji
S
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