Outcomes of adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation: a single institution's experience with 335 consecutive cases.

Objective: To determine outcomes for both donors and recipients of adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation (AALDLT) and independent factors impacting those outcomes.

Summary Background Data: Deceased donors for organ transplantation remain extremely rare, making living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) practically the sole therapeutic modality for patients with end-stage liver disease in Japan.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of initial LDLT for 335 consecutive adult (>or=18 years) patients performed between November 1994 and December 2003.

Results: : Of the 335 recipients, 275 received right-liver grafts and the remaining 60 recipients received non-right-liver grafts. Three of the 335 liver grafts were domino-splitting livers. Sixty of the 332 donors other than the domino-donors showed major postoperative complications. Multivariate analysis indicated that accumulation of case experience significantly and advantageously affected the surgical outcomes of these living liver donors, and right-liver donation and prolonged donor operation time were shown to be independent risk factors of major complications in the donors. Post-transplant patient and graft survival estimates were 73.1% and 72.5% at 1 year, 67.7% and 66.3% at 4 years, and 64.7% and 61.9% at 7 years, respectively. Obvious pretransplant encephalopathy, a higher (>or=31) modified Model for End-stage Liver Disease score (including points for persistent ascites and low serum sodium) and higher donor age (>or=50 years) were indicated as independent factors predictive of graft failure (graft loss or death) in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: Graft type and degree of experience exerted a significant impact on the surgical outcomes of AALDLT donors but did not significantly affect the survival outcomes of AALDLT recipients. Better pretransplant conditions and younger age (<50 years) among the living donors appeared to be advantageous in terms of gaining better survival outcomes of patients undergoing AALDLT.