title: Hepatic artery reconstruction with gonodal vein interposition: First case in patients receiving liver from the living donor.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Technical problems such as graft and vascular size are more common in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) than in deceased donor liver transplantation. It is usually possible to get enough length of vessels on the graft, but the opposite situation is devastating. Finding the suitable vessel graft is life-saving in those situations. In this paper we present a case of gonodal vein interpositioning for hepatic artery reconstruction in an LDLT recipient. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such case to be reported in the literature.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 36-year-old man with cirrhosis secondary to hepatitis B underwent LDLT. Within minutes after completing the anastomosis, the artery was thrombosed. Disrupting the anastomosis showed subintimal dissection of the recipient right hepatic artery extending to the gastro-duodenal junction. A 4 cm segment of gonodal vein, which matched the diameter of the recipient hepatic artery, was used as a bridge. The patient's postoperative recovery was excellent and Doppler ultrasonography demonstrated sufficient hepatic arterial blood flow. At long-term follow-up (18(th) months), the patient's graft is still functioning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gonodal vein interposition for hepatic artery reconstruction in living donor liver transplantation has not been previously reported. In light of the urgency of this situation, we believe it can be a life-saving reconstruction.
authors.affiliation: Akdeniz University Transplantation Institute, Antalya, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ayhan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dinckan
authors.forename: Alihan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gurkan
authors.forename: Omer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ozkan
authors.forename: Bulent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dinc
authors.forename: Yucel
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuksel
authors.forename: Nedim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Akgul
authors.forename: Mustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saracoglu
authors.forename: Taner
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Colak
keywords: gonodal vein; hepatic artery; liver transplantation