Immediate extubation of children following liver transplantation is safe and may be beneficial.

Background: Immediate tracheal extubation of selected adult patients after orthotopic liver transplant (OLT) is common practice. We hypothesized that selected children may be safely extubated immediately after OLT and avoid potentially deleterious effects of artificial ventilation and sedation.

Methods: After June 2002, we chose immediate extubation unless a specific contraindication was identified.