Summary
The purpose is to clarify risks of donation and quality of the donor's life after living‐related donor liver transplantation (LDLTx). Sixty‐eight donors were classified into four groups: lateral segment group (n = 30); left lobe group (n = 18); left lobe with the middle hepatic vein group (n = 11); right lobe group (n = 9). We investigated (i) the risks of donation, and evaluated the following: blood loss, operation time, postoperative liver function and duration of hospitalization; (ii) quality of donors’ life: donors were mailed a structured questionnaire and the Short‐Form Health Survey (SF‐36), a generic measure assessing quality of life using eight scales. The results were: (i) there were no differences in liver function and duration of hospitalization between four groups; (ii) 48 donors (71%) responded. All donors returned to normalcy. The donors did not regret their decision to donate except two cases whose recipients had died. The donors’ life was almost guaranteed regardless of the lobe we used as the graft.
Familial hypercholesterolemia is a rare inherited disease with an incidence of approximately one per million. Severe hypercholesterolemia is observed from the time of birth onwards. It is associated with severe atherosclerosis in childhood, leading to death from myocardial infarction before the age of 20 years. Liver transplantation is the only effective treatment for this disease. We experienced the case of an infant aged 2 years 5 months who had homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia and who received a liver graft from his father, who had familial heterozygous hypercholesterolemia. The pre-operative plasma cholesterol level was > 800 mg/dl. After liver transplantation, the recipient's cholesterol level decreased to 250 mg/dl after we administered the HMC-CoA reductase inhibitor. At present, 6 months after transplantation, the patient is doing well and free from a special diet. We can thus conclude that the combination therapy of liver transplantation from a donor with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia on cholesterol-lowering drugs is an effective therapy for a patient with the homozygous type of hypercholesterolemia.
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