Living-donor liver transplantation: an overview.
It has been 16 years since the first successful living-donor liver transplant was performed from a parent to a child. The overall recipient and graft survival, together with a low morbidity and mortality in donors, have resulted in the widespread acceptance of the procedure by both the transplant community and the public at large. Adult-to-adult living-donor liver transplantation has been evolving over the past decade. Despite living-donor transplant patients being better-risk candidates than those who receive a graft from a deceased donor, and well-established and experienced units achieving satisfactory results, overall recipient and graft survival recorder by registries can only be described as suboptimal. This, combined with the high morbidity and not-insignificant mortality amongst donors makes expansion of adult-to-adult liver transplantation hard to justify on a risk-benefit analysis.
Strong
Russell W
RW
University of Queensland, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Road, Brisbane, 4102, Australia.
D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000401:mortality; D019520:Living Donors; D015996:Survival Rate