Hanyang Medical Reviews  2006;26(3):4-8

Current Issues in Living Donor Liver Transplantation.

Jae Won JOH 1

Affiliations

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Keywords

Liver transplantation; Living donor

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) was first successfully done in pediatric patients and now its application has been expanded to adult patients. Especially in Asian countries, LDLT has become the mainstay of liver transplantation because of a severe shortage of cadaveric organs. The overall survival rate of recipients is almost same as in cadaveric whole organ transplantation. Advantages of LDLT include reduction in waiting time, flexible operation time, good quality of donor organ, and minimal cold ischemic time, etc. But it needs a thorough understanding of anatomy and it is technically more demanding. Recipient morbidity is increased, especially in biliary complications, and donor morbidity and mortality issues should be considered. Many surgical problems have been solved in the field of LDLT. Still the issues of small for size syndrome and biliary complication should be solved in the near future.