Doppler sonography of patients with and without acute cellular rejection after right-lobe living donor liver transplantation.
OBJECTIVE
To compare percent interval changes in the portal blood flow velocity (%PBV) and venous pulsatility index (%VPI), as determined by Doppler sonography, in patients with and without acute cellular rejection after right-lobe living donor liver transplantation.


METHODS
Forty-seven patients with biopsy-proven acute cellular rejection underwent Doppler sonography. The control group consisted of 47 age- and sex-matched patients without acute cellular rejection. Doppler spectrograms of the portal vein and right hepatic vein were used to calculate mean peak PBVs and VPIs for the first 3 days after right-lobe living donor liver transplantation, defined as PBV(Baseline) and VPI(Baseline). The PBV and VPI closest in time to biopsy in the patient group or at a matched time in the control group were determined as PBV(Event) and VPI(Event), and %PBV and %VPI values were calculated.


RESULTS
The mean PBV(Baseline) values ± SD in the rejection and control groups were 46.0 ± 21.8 and 44.4 ± 20.5 cm/s, respectively; the PBV(Event) values were 32.2 ± 14.5 and 34.4 ± 17.1 cm/s; and the %PBV values were 19.4% ± 39.9% and 2.2% ± 75.4% (P = .73; P = .38; P = .17, respectively). The VPI(Baseline) values were 0.92 ± 0.34 and 0.93 P = .94; P < .001); and the ± 0.38; the VPI(Event) values were 0.46 ± 0.33 and 0.84 ± 0.44 (%VPI values were 45.5% ± 40.1% and 5.6% ± 47.3%, with a greater than 50% VPI observed more frequently in the rejection than in the control group (61.7% versus 12.8%; P < .001).


CONCLUSIONS
The VPI(Event) was significantly lower and a greater than 50% VPI was significantly more frequent in patients with than without acute cellular rejection after right-lobe living donor liver transplantation.
Department of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 388-1 Pung-nap-2 Dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-736, Korea.
So Jung
SJ
Lee
Kyoung Won
KW
Kim
Jin Hee
JH
Kim
So Yeon
SY
Kim
Jong Seok
JS
Lee
Hyoung Jung
HJ
Kim
Dong-Hwan
DH
Jung
Gi-Won
GW
Song
Shin
S
Hwang
Eun Sil
ES
Yu
Jeongjin
J
Lee
Sung-Gyu
SG
Lee
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult