Objective: To investigate the donor evaluation, surgical protocol, and the complication for the adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation (AALDLT).
Methods: There were 94 cases of AALDLT were performed by the same surgical team from January 2007 to August 2010. Patients aged from 18 to 74 years. Donors aged from 19 to 60 years. All the 94 cases' operation protocol as following, 2 cases with left lobe liver graft, 92 cases with right lobe graft, 44 cases with middle hepatic vein (MHV) harvested, and 48 cases without MHV. Assessment methods of donors, postoperative complications and the current survival were analyzed.
Results: All the donors were discharged with good recovery, complication incidence of donor was 7.4%. Median time of follow-up was 37 months. Eight patients were died during follow-up, 1-year patient survival rate was 95.7%, and graft survival rate was 94.4%. One case complicated with small-for-size syndrome, 1 case was performed re-transplantation for acute hepatic necrosis, 24 patients (25.5%) showed biliary anastomotic stenosis defined cholangiography or magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography examination, and 9 patients (9.6%) showed abnormal liver function.
Conclusions: Living donor liver transplantation is an effective treatment method for end-stage liver disease, with accurate evaluation preoperative, a reasonable surgical approach, whether using the left or right lobe liver graft, with or without middle hepatic vein in AALDLT can effectively ensure the donor and recipient safety.