title: Live donor liver transplantation for acute liver failure.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Acute liver failure (ALF) carries a high mortality unless urgent orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is performed on time. Live donors are utilized to treat this irreversible condition first in pediatric cases and then in adults. Herein, we aimed to report our experience with live donors for ALF in a country of a deceased donor organ donation rate is only 1.5 per million people.
  
  
  METHODS
  Among the 245 live donor liver transplantations (LDLT) performed from June 1999 to December 2005, 14 of them (6%) were performed for ALF in 8 pediatric and 6 adult cases. Right lobes were harvested for the adult cases whereas left lateral segments were harvested for pediatric cases, except one child transplanted with a right lobe graft. The etiology of the disease was; acute hepatitis B in four cases, hepatitis A in three cases, Wilson disease two cases, autoimmune hepatitis in two cases, and was unknown in three cases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three-year graft and patient survival is 79% for these series. Five of the six adult patients and six of the eight pediatric cases survived after transplantation. There was not any donor mortality or major morbidity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  LDLT offers a safe and effective modality of treatment for ALF for both pediatric and adult patients to overcome the problem of organ shortage especially in countries where the chance of receiving an organ from a deceased donor is low.
authors: Department of Surgery, Ege University Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. murat.kilic@ege.edu.tr
authors: Murat
authors: M
authors: Kilic
authors: Unal
authors: U
authors: Aydin
authors: Aysin
authors: A
authors: Noyan
authors: Cigdem
authors: C
authors: Arikan
authors: Sema
authors: S
authors: Aydogdu
authors: Murat
authors: M
authors: Akyildiz
authors: Zeki
authors: Z
authors: Karasu
authors: Murat
authors: M
authors: Zeytunlu
authors: Mehmet
authors: M
authors: Alper
authors: Yucel
authors: Y
authors: Batur
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017114:Liver Failure, Acute / Q000601:surgery*; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000208:ethnology / Q000379:methods*; D019520:Living Donors; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000209:etiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014421:Turkey; D014850:Waiting Lists