Liver transplantation using organs from deceased organ donors: a single organ transplant center experience

BACKGROUND： In 2011, a pilot program for deceased organ donation was initiated in China. We describe the first successful series of liver transplants in the pilot program.METHODS： From July 2011 to August 2012, our center performed 26 liver transplants from a pool of 29 deceased donors. All organ donation and allograft procurement were conducted according to the national protocol. The clinical data of donors and recipients were collected and summarized retrospectively.RESULTS： Among the 29 donors, 24 were China Category II donors（organ donation after cardiac death）, and five were China Category III donors（organ donation after brain death followed by cardiac death）. The recipients were mainly the patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. The one-year patient survival rate was 80.8% with a median follow-up of 422（2-696） days. Among the five mortalities during the follow-up,three died of tumor recurrence. In terms of post-transplant complications, 9 recipients（34.6%） experienced early allograft dysfunction, 1（3.8%） had non-anastomotic biliary stricture,and 1（3.8%） was complicated with hepatic arterial thrombosis.None of these complications resulted in patient death. Notably,primary non-function was not observed in any of the grafts.CONCLUSION： With careful donor selection, liver transplant from deceased donors can be performed safely and plays acritical role in overcoming the extreme organ shortage in China.

Immediate post-operative complications(I):Post-operative bleeding;vascular origin:Thrombosis pancreatitis

Simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice forinsulin-dependent diabetes that associates end-stage diabetic nephropathy, sinceit achieves not only a clear improvement in the quality of life, but also provides along-term survival advantage over isolated kidney transplant. However, pancreastransplantation still has the highest rate of surgical complications among organtransplants. More than 70% of early graft losses are attributed to technical failures,that is, to a non-immunological cause. The so-called technical failures includegraft thrombosis, bleeding, infection, pancreatitis, anastomotic leak and pancreaticfistula. Pancreatic graft thrombosis leads these technical complications as the mostfrequent cause of early graft loss. Currently most recipients receive postoperativeanticoagulation with the aim of reducing the rate of thrombosis. Hemoperitoneumin the early postoperative period is a frequent cause of relaparotomy, but it is notusually associated with graft loss. The incidence of hemoperitoneum is clearlyrelated to the use of anticoagulation in the postoperative period. Post-transplantpancreatitis is another cause of early postoperative complications, less frequentthan the previous. In this review, we analyze the most common surgicalcomplications that determine pancreatic graft losses.

Classical orthotopic liver transplantation from a donor with situs inversus totalis using slight rotation of the liver graft

Situs inversus totalis （SIT） is a rare congenital abnormality that affects approximately 0.005% of all live births. 1 Liver grafts with SIT have traditionally been considered as an absolute contraindication for transplant because of anatomical concerns.2 A review of the literature indicated that there were only four cases of liver transplantation using an SIT donor and normal recipient.3-6 Various modified ＂piggyback＂ techniques were used in all of these cases. In the present case, we obtained a liver from a deceased donor with SIT,