RESUMEN
Drowning, a common cause of death in the pediatric population, is a potentially large donor pool for OLT. Anecdotally, transplant centers have deemed these organs high risk over concerns for infection and graft dysfunction. We theorized drowned donor liver allografts do not portend worse outcomes and therefore should not be excluded from the donation pool. We reviewed our single-center experience of pediatric OLTs between 1988 and 2015 and identified 33 drowned donor recipients. These OLTs were matched 1:2 to head trauma donor OLTs from our center. A chart review assessed postoperative peak AST and ALT, incidence of HAT, graft and recipient survival. Recipient survival at one year between patients with drowned donor vs head trauma donor allografts was not statistically significant (94% vs 97%, P=.63). HAT incidence was 6.1% in the drowned donor group vs 7.6% in the control group (P=.78). Mean postoperative peak AST and ALT was 683 U/L and 450 U/L for drowned donors vs 1119 U/L and 828 U/L in the matched cohort. These results suggest drowned donor liver allografts do not portend worse outcomes in comparison with those procured from head trauma donors.
Asunto(s)
Selección de Donante/métodos , Ahogamiento , Trasplante de Hígado , Adolescente , Niño , Preescolar , Traumatismos Craneocerebrales , Femenino , Estudios de Seguimiento , Supervivencia de Injerto , Humanos , Lactante , Recién Nacido , Estimación de Kaplan-Meier , Trasplante de Hígado/mortalidad , Masculino , Evaluación de Resultado en la Atención de Salud , Estudios Retrospectivos , Tasa de Supervivencia , Donantes de Tejidos , Trasplante HomólogoRESUMEN
Portosystemic shunts can serve as a bridge to liver transplantation in patients with end-stage liver disease by providing portal decompression to treat life-threatening variceal bleeding and prevent recurrent episodes until an organ becomes available. The conventional TIPS procedure, however, is technically challenging to perform in infants due to the small size of their intrahepatic vasculature. We report two cases of emergent creation of portosystemic shunts as a bridge to liver transplantation in infants with life-threatening variceal bleeding using a conventional TIPS technique in the first case and a percutaneous DIPS technique in the other. Both procedures were successful at reducing the portosystemic pressure gradient and preventing further variceal bleeds until a liver transplant could be performed. The novel percutaneous DIPS procedure is a valuable alternative to the conventional TIPS in infants, as it is better suited for small or challenging intrahepatic vascular anatomy.