Living donor liver transplant with clinical tolerance, laboratory evidence of chimerism, and spontaneous clearance of HBV
✍ Scribed by James J. Stone; Seong-Hwan Chang; Pamela M. Kimball; R. Todd Stravitz; Robert A. Fisher
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2004
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 67 KB
- Volume
- 10
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1527-6465
- DOI
- 10.1002/lt.20278
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
We present a case of functional and histopathologic tolerance, chimerism, and spontaneous clearance of HBV in a patient four years after living donor liver transplant (LDLT). A 19-year-old male patient underwent a LDLT for HBV cirrhosis. He voluntarily ceased immunosuppression and antiviral therapy after 6 months. He is now four years status post transplant without any episodes of rejection or clinical manifestation of liver disease. PCR and VNTR were used to show donor-recipient chimerism and a large degree of genetic similarity between the pair. MLC and cytokine elaboration were used to show recipient hyporeactivity towards donor antigen. He also has clinical evidence of clearing his HBV without continued use of HBIG.