Sequential liver transplantation: 27 cases in 25 patients

Domino-liver transplantation: toward a safer and simpler technique in both donor and recipient

Domino-liver transplantation represents a rare chance to expand the donor liver pool. Fear of putting both donor and recipient at disadvantage has meant that the procedure has not been applied universally. A modification of the original technique which allows both safe procurement of the graft as well as safe implantation of the reconstructed graft in the domino-graft recipient using a 180° rotated, adequately trimmed, free iliaco-caval venous graft is described in detail.

Natural history and therapy of TTR-cardiac amyloidosis: emerging disease-modifying therapies from organ transplantation to stabilizer and silencer drugs

Transthyretin-cardiac amyloidoses (ATTR-CA) are an underdiagnosed but increasingly recognized cause of heart failure. Extracellular deposition of fibrillary proteins into tissues due to a variety of inherited transthyretin mutations in ATTRm or due to advanced age in ATTRwt eventually leads to organ failure. In the heart, amyloid deposition causes diastolic dysfunction, restrictive cardiomyopathy with progressive loss of systolic function, arrhythmias, and heart failure. While traditional treatments have consisted of conventional heart failure management and supportive care for systemic symptoms, numerous disease-modifying therapies have emerged over the past decade. From organ transplantation to transthyretin stabilizers (diflunisal, tafamidis, AG-1), TTR silencers (ALN-ATTR02, ISIS-TTR(Rx)), and degraders of amyloid fibrils (doxycycline/TUDCA), the potential for effective transthyretin amyloid therapy is greater now than ever before. In light of these multiple agents under investigation in human clinical trials, clinicians should be familiar with the systemic cardiac amyloidoses, their differing pathophysiology, natural histories, and unique treatment strategies.

Domino liver transplantation: indications, techniques, and outcomes

The long-term shortage of livers available for transplantation has spurred the development of many strategies to bolster the donor organ supply. One particularly innovative strategy is domino liver transplantation in which a select group of liver transplant recipients can donate their explanted native livers for use as liver grafts in other patients. Several hereditary metabolic diseases (such as familial amyloid polyneuropathy, maple syrup urine disease, and familial hypercholesterolemia) are caused by aberrant or deficient protein production in the liver, and these conditions can be cured with an orthotopic liver transplant. Although their native livers eventually caused severe systemic disease in these patients, these livers are otherwise structurally and functionally normal, and they have been used successfully in domino liver transplants for the past 15 years. This article will review the indications for donating or receiving a domino liver transplant, the surgical techniques necessary to perform these transplants, as well as the recently revealed long-term outcomes and risks of domino transplantation.

Systemic treatment and liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma: two ends of the therapeutic spectrum

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the fifth most common malignant disorder and causes nearly 1 million deaths a year worldwide. A background of cirrhosis is the major risk factor, and in Asia and subSaharan Africa, cirrhosis is attributable mainly to endemic hepatitis B infection. In Europe and the USA the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma is increasing as a result of the high prevalence of hepatitis C. The only curative treatments are surgical resection or liver transplantation, but only a few patients are eligible for these procedures. Local ablative treatments such as ethanol injection can lengthen survival in selected patients, and radiofrequency ablation also shows promise. Unfortunately, most patients are suitable only for palliative treatment because of the extent of their tumour or background liver disease or both. For these patients, a wide range of therapeutic interventions have been assessed, including transarterial embolisation (with or without chemotherapy), hormone therapy with antioestrogens and androgens, octreotide, interferon, and both arterial and systemic chemotherapy, of which only chemoembolisation improves survival over symptomatic care. Tamoxifen is ineffective, and there are insufficient randomised data to show the benefit of any other intervention. In this review, we focus on two ends of the therapeutic spectrum--transplantation, which is highly effective but applicable to only a few patients, and systemic chemotherapy, which is of uncertain benefit but widely applicable.

Review article: hepatocellular carcinoma: indications for liver transplantation

The role of liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma has evolved over the years and currently is one of the curative therapies for small tumours. The survival rates are similar with those for nonmalignant liver disease after transplantation. The treatment of small tumours eligible for both resection and transplantation depends on the experience of the transplant centre and the waiting time for a liver graft. With waiting times for liver transplant becoming gradually longer, prioritization of the tumour patients has been suggested. Adjuvant therapies may delay the tumour progression while patients wait for a transplant. The living donor and the domino liver transplantation are useful alternatives given the shortage of organs but the experience is still limited in the Western world and the selection for the domino livers is fairly restricted.

Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma

The surgical management for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is multiplicity. In Japan, liver resection has generally been considered to be the only curative treatment for HCC. The resectability of a tumor in cirrhotic patients, however, is limited by the diminished functional reserve of the cirrhotic liver and the attendant risk for intraoperative bleeding and postoperative liver failure. In cirrhotic patients, liver transplantation has been considered as the indication for HCC in many countries except Japan. Although the survival rate of patients with HCC who received liver transplants was poor in the early period, it later moved to the same level as for patients with other liver diseases. In 1993, living donor adult liver transplantation was started in Japan and it became an additional option for the treatment of HCC. A shortage of liver donors means that new methods of liver procurement must be explored. Domino liver transplantation using the livers of patients with familial amyloid polyneuropathy was also another option for advanced HCC. For the prevention of a recurrence of HCC, pre-, intra-, and postoperative chemotherapy have been performed after both liver resection and liver transplantation. We should also try to minimize intraoperative dissemination by surgical manipulation. Recently, potential gene therapies for HCC have been studied. Electroporation-mediated IL-12 gene therapy for HCC was found to be effective for both mIL-12-transferred HCC and for distant HCC. For patients with HCC accompanied by liver cirrhosis, liver transplantation remains the ultimate curative therapy. Immunologic and oncologic approaches to HCC can help prevent tumor recurrence and also help us to obtain better results after liver transplantation.