Living donor liver transplantation for small infants aged less than 6 months: The experience of a single institute
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In brief
In brief
Single-center retrospective study of nine infants under 6 months undergoing living donor liver transplantation between 2004-2019, primarily for acute liver failure and biliary atresia. Despite technical challenges requiring graft reduction techniques, outcomes were favorable with survival largely dependent on underlying etiology and surgical innovation.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Abstract
Purpose
Liver transplantation (LT) for small infants < 6 months old is rare but becoming common as perioperative care improves. In Taiwan, living donor LT (LDLT) has expanded indications but is rarely performed for this age group because of unfavorable outcomes in the literature. We evaluated LDLT outcomes of patients <6 months old.
Methods
We identified infants < 6 months old undergoing LDLT between 2004 and 2019 at our hospital. Variables related to recipients, donors, surgeries, and outcomes were analyzed.
Results
Nine patients were identified. Indications for LT were biliary atresia (n = 2), Alagille syndrome (n = 1), protein C deficiency (n = 1), and acute liver failure (n = 5), including two patients with neonatal hemochromatosis, one with herpes simplex hepatitis, one with giant cell hepatitis with autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and one with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. Median age and weight at LT were 129 days and 4.8 kg, respectively. Graft types included left lateral segment (LLS, n = 4), hyper-reduced LLS (n = 4), and monosegment (n = 1). The median graft-to-recipient weight ratio was 4%. The median follow-up period was 14 months (range, 8 days to 127 months) with two mortalities, and two patients were totally weaned off immunosuppressants. Adjuvant therapies were required for patients with giant cell hepatitis and hemophagocytosis. Preoperative reconstructive imaging for estimating graft thickness facilitated surgical planning.
Conclusion
Although LDLT is difficult to perform for small infants, outcomes are favorable and mainly dependent on underlying causes in addition to technical innovations.