title: Live donor liver transplantation for alcoholic hepatitis.
abstract: Liver transplantation is a definitive therapy for patients with end-stage liver disease and cirrhosis, with improvement in survival and quality of life. Patients are carefully screened and selected for this modality of treatment to achieve maximum survival benefit. For example, a patient with hepatocellular carcinoma is a candidate if he or she is within Milan criteria and has no significant comorbidity. Similarly, patients with alcoholic cirrhosis are transplant candidates if they are deemed to have been rehabilitated from abusive alcohol consumption and are at low risk for recidivism. More recently, carefully selected patients with alcoholic hepatitis have been successfully transplanted. The preferred transplantation modality is cadaveric liver transplantation. However, living donor liver transplantation is carried out if there is no cadaveric liver organ allocation system, or if the patient is deemed to be at low priority for cadaveric organ transplantation based on the allocation system. Living donor liver transplantation for alcoholic hepatitis needs to be addressed with this background in mind.
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 35294-0012, USA. ashwanisingal.com@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ashwani K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Singal
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Patrick S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Kamath
mesh_terms: D046148:Donor Selection; D006085:Graft Survival; D006519:Hepatitis, Alcoholic / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D019520:Living Donors / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D018579:Patient Selection; D011788:Quality of Life; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Liver donor; Liver transplantation