Pediatric liver transplantation with reduced size donor organs (RLT) has evolved into a standard clinical procedure increasing the choices of recipients for their treatment. Nevertheless organ availability remains a major problem. The authors therefore have proposed to study the use of hepatic segments from living related donors (LRT) in a group of 20 children less than 2 years of age or weighing less than 15 kg, in whom standard indications for transplantation existed. Volunteer related donors were selected after medical and psychiatric evaluations, and the suitability of the donor's liver was established by functional and radiologic criteria. A two-stage informed consent process assured appropriate "volunteerism." Nineteen infants received LRT as first grafts and one as a second graft. Seventeen of the recipients are alive 3 to 18 months after LRT. Fifteen of 20 patients are currently at home with the original graft and normal liver function (bilirubin less than 1.5 mg/dl) after a median hospital stay of 27 days (range, 14-93 days). Four patients underwent retransplantation, in all cases due to arterial thrombosis. The overall graft survival for 20 primary LRTs is 75%, with follow-up between 3 and 18 months. A number of technical problems occurred during our initial trial, the most aggravating being vascular thrombosis. Refined approaches to vascular reconstruction should reduce the incidence of thrombosis and improve the rate of survival in future cases. The donor group for the initial 20 LRT procedures comprised 12 mothers, 7 fathers, and 1 grandmother. In addition one father and one uncle, who was an identical twin of the recipient's father, who did not qualify for anatomic reasons, were used in repeat LRT. All donors survived and are now in normal health between 3 and 18 months after LRT, having returned to all activities enjoyed before donation. The median hospital stay was 6 days (range, 5-14). Complications were minimal, and all were limited to the first three procedures, in which a full left hepatectomy was performed. After alteration of the procedure into a left lateral segmentectomy, no complications were encountered. The left lateral segmentectomy presents minimal surgical trauma to the liver and should remain the primary approach for obtaining a liver graft from a living donor. For children, transplantation of a left lateral segment from a live donor provides a new way of providing a transplant of appropriate size and with good function. The success of this program has led to the acceptance of LRT for general clinical application in the authors' institution.

The University of Chicago program in pediatric liver transplantation continues actively to seek innovative surgical solutions to problems related to the management of children with end-stage liver disease. Among the most important problems facing these children is a shortage of donor organs, which results from three factors in addition to the actual supply of pediatric donors: the concentration of pediatric liver disease in the population younger than 2 years; the necessity for a graft that is small enough; and the epidemiology of accidents and other events that lead to organ donation. Transplantation using a liver lobe as a graft overcomes size disparity and shifts the available supply of organs from older donors to younger recipients. This work describes the technical aspects of recent innovations in the use of liver lobes in pediatric transplantation, simple reduced-size liver transplantation (RLT), split-liver transplantation (SLT), orthotopic auxiliary liver grafting (ALT), and transplantation using a living related donor (LRLT), and compares their results. Since November 1986 a total of 61 procedures have been performed in which a liver lobe was used as a graft: 26 RLT; 30 SLT, 25 in children and 5 in adults; 5 LRLT; and 1 ALT. Overall 62% of transplants performed in children have involved using a liver lobe as a graft. The rates of complications are somewhat higher than with whole-liver transplantation, but this may not be entirely the result of the complex procedures. Split liver transplantation is associated with the highest mortality and complication rates. Living related liver transplantation has been associated with complications in donors and recipients, but to date survival is 100%. Orthotopic auxiliary liver transplantation effectively corrected the metabolic defect in one patient with ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency. Overall the various modalities of using graft reduction have resulted in postoperative results similar to those achieved with full-size grafts, while pretransplantation mortality has been limited to less than 2%. Thus the use of grafts as liver lobes accomplishes the goal of reducing global mortality among children with end-stage liver disease, but at the cost of increased surgical complexity and more postoperative complications.

No abstract

Since the establishment of a clinical program in liver transplantation in 1984, 162 liver transplants have been performed in 131 patients (78 adults, 53 children). The patient mortality rate while waiting for a suitable organ has been 8% for adults and only 4% for children (25-46% reported in the literature). The low pediatric mortality is a result of the use of reduced-size liver transplants. A total of 14 procedures have been performed in recipients whose clinical condition was deteriorating and for whom no full-size graft could be located. Of 14 children, 13 were less than 3 years of age. Patient survival is 50%, comparable to survival of high-risk recipients of full-size livers. Using reduced-size liver grafting in a transplant program can lower mortality for children awaiting a transplant by overcoming size disparity. Reduced-size liver grafting will allow more effective use of donor resources and provide a potential avenue of research for organ splitting and living related donation.

No abstract