title: Outcome of pediatric liver transplant in grafts with multiple arteries.
abstract: Young age, small diameter of the hepatic artery, presence of multiple arteries, and the selected technique are risk factors for hepatic arterial complications. We report the outcomes of pediatric liver transplant (LT) patients who had received a liver graft with multiple arteries. Since April 2001, 89 pediatric LTs have been performed at our center. Twenty-six liver grafts (29.2%) that had multiple hepatic arteries were analyzed retrospectively. Twenty-five grafts had 2, and 1 graft had 3, hepatic arteries. In 17 grafts with double arteries, and in 1 graft with 3 arteries, the adjacent edges of the hepatic arteries were sutured together at the back table to create a single opening, and the recipient's common hepatic artery was then anastomosed to that orifice. In 8 grafts with double arteries, 2 separate anastomoses were performed between the graft hepatic arteries and the recipient's hepatic artery branches. The mean age of the recipients was 7.9 +/- 5.4 years (range, 0.6-17 years). During the early postoperative period, hepatic arterial thromboses occurred in 3 recipients. Two of these 3 recipients were treated with transcatheter arterial thrombolysis using streptokinase or recombinant plasminogen and intraluminal stent placement, and the remaining recipient was treated with a re-anastomosis using a polytetrafluoroethylene graft. Three recipients died during follow-up, which ranged from 1 to 71 months. In conclusion, multiple graft arteries did not increase the incidence of hepatic arterial complications in our series.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery and Transplantation, Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey. rektorluk@baskent-ank.edu.tr
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haberal
authors.forename: Sinasi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sevmis
authors.forename: Hamdi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Karakayali
authors.forename: Gokhan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moray
authors.forename: Figen
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ozcay
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torgay
authors.forename: Gulnaz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arslan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006085:Graft Survival; D006499:Hepatic Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000175:diagnosis; D016896:Treatment Outcome