In 1958 Francis Moore described the orthotopic liver transplantation technique in dogs. In 1963, Starzl et al. performed the first liver transplantation. In the first five liver transplantations no patient survived more than 23 days. In 1967, stimulated by Calne who used antilymphocytic serum, Starzl began a successful series of liver transplantation. Until 1977, 200 liver transplantations were performed in the world. In that period, technical problems were overcome. Roy Calne, in 1979, used the first time cyclosporine in two patients who had undergone liver transplantation. In 1989, Starzl et al. reported a series of 1,179 consecutives patients who underwent liver transplantation and reported a survival rate between one and five years of 73% and 64%, respectively. Finally, in 1990, Starzl et al. reported successful use of tacrolimus in patents undergoing liver transplantation and who had rejection despite receiving conventional immunosuppressive treatment. Liver Transplantation Program was initiated at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in 1990 and so far over 1,400 transplants have been done. In 2013, 102 deceased donors liver transplantations were performed. The main indications for transplantation were hepatocellular carcinoma (38%), hepatitis C virus (33.3%) and alcohol liver cirrhosis (19.6%). Of these, 36% of patients who underwent transplantation showed biological MELD score > 30. Patient and graft survival in the first year was, 82.4% and 74.8%, respectively. A major challenge in liver transplantation field is the insufficient number of donors compared with the growing demand of transplant candidates. Thus, we emphasize that appropriated donor/receptor selection, allocation and organ preservation topics should contribute to improve the number and outcomes in liver transplantation.

Primary hepatic carcinoid tumors are extremely rare neoplasms derived from hormone-producing neuroendocrine cells. It is difficult to make their diagnosis before biopsy, surgical resection or necropsy. A recent publication described only 94 cases of these tumors. There is no sex predilection and apparently it has no association with cirrhosis or preexisting hepatic disease. The most effective treatment is hepatectomy, and resection is determined by size and location of the lesions.

Intestinal transplantation has shown exceptional growth over the past 10 years. At the end of the 1990’s, intestinal transplantation moved out of the experimental realm to become a routine practice in treating patients with severe complications related to total parenteral nutrition and intestinal failure. In the last years, several centers reported an increasing improvement in survival outcomes (about 80%), during the first 12 months after surgery, but long-term survival is still a challenge. Several advances led to clinical application of transplants. Immunosuppression involved in intestinal and multivisceral transplantation was the biggest gain for this procedure in the past decade due to tacrolimus, and new inducing drugs, mono- and polyclonal anti-lymphocyte antibodies. Despite the advancement of rigid immunosuppression protocols, rejection is still very frequent in the first 12 months, and can result in long-term graft loss. The future of intestinal transplantation and multivisceral transplantation appears promising. The major challenge is early recognition of acute rejection in order to prevent graft loss, opportunistic infections associated to complications, post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease and graft versus host disease; and consequently, improve results in the long run.

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O transplante hepático revolucionou a expectativa de vida dos pacientes com doença hepática em estágio avançado, tornando-se muitas vezes a única modalidade terapêutica efetiva para uma variedade de doenças hepáticas crônicas ou agudas irreversíveis.1-4Deve-se a C. S. Welch as primeiras tentativas de transplante hepático experimental em cães, em 1955.5 Embora a técnica de transplante hepático em humanos tenha sido descrita inicialmente em 1960,6,7 o primeiro transplante de fígado no homem foi realizado em 1963 na Universidade do Colorado em Denver (EUA) por Thomas Starzl8 em um paciente de três anos de idade com atresia de vias biliares e que foi a óbito no transoperatório por sangramento. O primeiro transplante hepático realizado em humanos com sucesso foi alcançado por esta mesma equipe em 1967 em uma criança de um ano e meio com carcinoma hepatocelular.1Desde então a técnica operatória tem sido constantemente modificada e aprimorada, sendo necessárias quase duas décadas para que o transplante hepático se consolidasse como uma alternativa terapêutica cientificamente comprovada.O Brasil entra precocemente na era dos transplantes de fígado. Em 1965, o grupo de metabologia cirúrgica da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo produz as primeiras pesquisas experimentais sobre transplante de fígado em cães. No dia 5 de agosto de 1968, foi realizado com sucesso técnico o primeiro transplante de fígado da América Latina no Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (HCFMUSP), em um doente com 52 anos de idade, portador de cirrose hepática e carcinoma hepatocelular...