Are short-term complications associated with poor allograft and patient survival after liver transplantation? A systematic review of the literature and expert panel recommendations.

Background: Maximizing patient and allograft survival after liver transplant (LT) is important from both a patient care and organ utilization perspective. Although individual studies have addressed the effects of short-term post-LT complications on a limited scale, there has not been a systematic review of the literature formally assessing the potential effects of early complications on long-term outcomes.

Objectives: To identify whether short-term complications after LT affect allograft and overall survival, to identify short-term complications of particular clinical interest and significance, and to provide recommendations to improve post-LT graft and patient survival.

Optimal surgical workup to ensure safe recovery of the donor after living liver donation - A systematic review of the literature and expert panel recommendations.

Background: The essential premise of living donor liver transplantation is the assurance that the donors will have a complication-free perioperative course and a prompt recovery. Selection of appropriate donors is the first step to support this premise and is based on tests that constitute the donor workup. The exclusion of liver pathologies and assessment of liver anatomy and volume in the donor candidate are the most important elements in the selection of the appropriate candidate.

Laparoscopic appendectomies: experience of a surgical unit.

Appendicitis is one of the most common causes of acute abdomen in adults and appendectomy is the most common emergency abdominal procedure. Laparoscopic appendectomy has gained popularity only in recent years and the optimal approach for the treatment of acute appendicitis is still under debate. This retrospective study aimed at examining the current indications for laparoscopic appendectomy.