Abstract
The huge discrepancy between the number of patients waiting for a liver transplant (LT) and the availability of donor organs have forced the transplant community to explore the use of extended criteria donors, of which old donors represent the most important group. We investigated the use of liver donors above 75 years in Scandinavia in the period 2001-2011 (n=54) and compared the results with a control group of 54 patients transplanted with donors aged 20-49 years, and could not demonstrate any difference in long term patient- (PS) or graft survival (GS) between the two groups. Performing ABO incompatible (ABOi) LT is another way of expanding the individual patient’s donor pool, although ABOi LT has been associated with significantly worse outcome compared to ABO compatible (ABOc) LT in several former studies. In our study, we investigated the results of 61 ABOi LTs performed in Gothenburg and Oslo and compared the main results to all ABOc LTs during the same period (1996-2011). We found that PS was not affected by ABOi meaning that these LTs were undoubtedly lifesaving for selected patients, but GS was significantly worse, and the complications rates were high. At the same time as waiting list are increasing, the indicati0ns and limits for which patients that should be offered LT have been pushed. We investigated the use of urgent LT in 13 patients suffering from acute liver failure either after iatrogenic injuries to the liver or due to remnant liver failure after resections. We conclude that LT was justified in the first group but it is questionable whether LT should be performed in the setting of cancer outside accepted LT-criteria. The main message in this thesis is that in the setting of organ scarcity, it is justified to use older liver donors, and that in certain rare circumstances ABOi LT is warranted as a lifesaving procedure.
List of papers
Paper I: Transplantation With Livers From Deceased Donors Older Than 75 Years. Thorsen T, Aandahl EM, Bennet W, Olausson M, Ericzon BG, Nowak G, Duraj F, Isoniemi H, Rasmussen A, Karlsen TH, Foss A. Transplantation. 2015 Dec;99(12):2534-42. doi: 10.1097/TP.0000000000000728. The paper is not available in DUO due to publisher restrictions. The published version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000000728 |
Paper II: Liver transplantation with deceased ABO-incompatible donors is life-saving but associated with increased risk of rejection and post-transplant complications. Thorsen T, Dahlgren US, Aandahl EM, Grzyb K, Karlsen TH, Boberg KM, Rydberg L, Naper, Foss A1, Bennet W. Transpl International. 2015 Jul;28(7):800-12. doi: 10.1111/tri.12552. The paper is not available in DUO due to publisher restrictions. The published version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/tri.12552 |
Paper III: Liver transplantation as a lifesaving procedure for posthepatectomy liver failure and iatrogenic liver injuries. Trygve Thorsen, Jon Magnus Solheim, Knut Jørgen Labori, Pål-Dag Line, Einar Martin Aandahl. Langenbeck's Archives of Surgery (2019) 404:301–308, DOI: 10.1007/s00423-019-01780-3. The paper is included in the thesis. The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-019-01780-3 |