Current Status in Live Liver Donation: Donor Selection, Surgical Technique, Long-Term Outcome

Abstract

Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has been one of the most remarkable steps in the field of liver transplantation. Live liver donation significantly expands the scarce donor pool in countries with a shortage of available cadaveric grafts. Live liver donation has clinical benefits over deceased liver donation, such as shortening wait time, scheduling convenience, and increasing long-term success. In that healthy people undergo major surgery for their loved ones, the physical and psychological sacrifices of donors are immense. Thus, donor safety is one of the most important issues in performing LDLT. Recently, due to a better understanding of liver anatomy and technical innovations in donor surgery, live liver donor selection criteria have expanded, and good results are reported with securing donor safety. In this chapter, we introduce expanded selection criteria for live liver donation and innovative donor surgery, including minimally invasive approaches, and provide information regarding the current overview of donor postoperative quality of life and long-term outcomes.