Perivascular Low Attenuation Zone at CT of Liver Transplants

Abstract

A follow-up study of 30 liver transplant patients confirmed that periportal and pericaval rims oflow attenuation found at CT reflect hepatic lymph stasis. The perivascular rims are found coexistent with acute allograft rejection, but are not correlated with acute rejection, immunosuppressive agents (cyclosporin A), or intercurrent infection. Disappearance of the perivascular low attenuation zone in our materialcoincided with normalization ofliver biochemistry probably associated with reestablishment of lymphatic drainage. Like previous reports on experimental hepatic lymph stasis, our study thus indicates that lymph stasismay have harmful effects on human liver allografts.

Liver Regeneration following 68% Partial Orthotopic Liver Transplantation in the Rat

“…First, this could be caused by reactive edema in the graft or lymph stasis [21], and we cannot conclude from the CT examina tions that the grafts really overregencrate. However, at the end of the study when the liver was taken out and weighed, the trans planted liver grafts were on average 27% big ger than the control livers (correlated for body weight), histology showed almost normal liver architecture, except for the moderate lympho cyte infiltration in the portal tracts, and the total liver DNA content was on average 32% higher in the transplanted livers, suggesting a true overregeneration of the transplanted graft.…”