First experience of liver transplantation with type 2 donation after cardiac death in France.

Organ donation after unexpected cardiac death [type 2 donation after cardiac death (DCD)] is currently authorized in France and has been since 2006. Following the Spanish experience, a national protocol was established to perform liver transplantation (LT) with type 2 DCD donors. After the declaration of death, abdominal normothermic oxygenated recirculation was used to perfuse and oxygenate the abdominal organs until harvesting and cold storage. Such grafts were proposed to consenting patients < 65 years old with liver cancer and without any hepatic insufficiency. Between 2010 and 2013, 13 LTs were performed in 3 French centers. Six patients had a rapid and uneventful postoperative recovery. However, primary nonfunction occurred in 3 patients, with each requiring urgent retransplantation, and 4 early allograft dysfunctions were observed. One patient developed a nonanastomotic biliary stricture after 3 months, whereas 8 patients showed no sign of ischemic cholangiopathy at their 1-year follow-up. In comparison with a control group of patients receiving grafts from brain-dead donors (n = 41), donor age and cold ischemia time were significantly lower in the type 2 DCD group. Time spent on the national organ wait list tended to be shorter in the type 2 DCD group: 7.5 months [interquartile range (IQR), 4.0-11.0 months] versus 12.0 months (IQR, 6.8-16.7 months; P = 0.08. The 1-year patient survival rates were similar (85% in the type 2 DCD group versus 93% in the control group), but the 1-year graft survival rate was significantly lower in the type 2 DCD group (69% versus 93%; P = 0.03). In conclusion, to treat borderline hepatocellular carcinoma, LT with type 2 DCD donors is possible as long as strict donor selection is observed.

Sonorheometry Device Thresholds in Liver Transplantation: An Observational Retrospective Study.

BACKGROUND: Liver transplantation (LT) remains a potentially haemorrhagic procedure whose perioperative bleeding and transfusion could be better monitored using point-of-care devices. Quantra® is a device based on sonorheometry to assess whole blood clot formation. Our aims were to describe Quantra® parameters during LT and to study their correlations with standard laboratory parameters, and to determine Quantra® cut-off values for thrombocytopenia, hypofibrinogenemia and coagulation factors' deficit. METHODS: In 34 patients undergoing LT, blood samples were collected before surgical incision, 15 min after the beginning of the anhepatic phase, and 15 min after arterial revascularization of the graft. RESULTS: Clotting time (CT) was well correlated with prothrombin (PT) ratio and activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) ratio. Platelet contribution to clot stiffness (PCS) was correlated with platelets (ρ = 0.82, p < 0.001) and fibrinogen contribution clot stiffness (FCS) with fibrinogen (Fg) (ρ = 0.74, p < 0.001). CT predicted a PT ratio < 30% with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.93 (95% CI 0.87-0.98; p < 0.001). PCS predicted a platelet count < 50 G/L with an AUC of 0.87 (95% CI 0.76-0.98, p < 0.001). FCS predicted a Fg < 1.0, 1.2 or 1.5 g/L, with an AUC of 0.86 (95% CI 0.77-094, p < 0.001), 0.82 (95% CI 0.74-0.91, p < 0.001) and 0.88 (95% CI 0.82-0.95, p < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSION: Quantra® provides a rapid assessment of haemostasis during LT.