Living donor liver transplantation using a graft from a donor with situs inversus totalis

✍ Scribed by Jae Min Chun; Gum O. Jung; Gyu Seong Choi; Jae Berm Park; Choon Hyuck David Kwon; Sung-Joo Kim; Jae-Won Joh; Suk-Koo Lee

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 297 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1527-6465
• DOI: 10.1002/lt.21653

✦ Synopsis

In Asia, various cultural, social, and historic factors have severely limited the availability of deceased donor organs. Therefore, living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has emerged as an important therapeutic option for patients with end-stage liver disease. According to data reported to the Korean Network for Organ Sharing liver transplantation registry, LDLT accounted for more than 80% of the liver transplants performed in Korea during 2007. As the number of cases has increased, transplant surgeons have introduced technical innovations over the past 2 decades, and most technical obstacles have been overcome.

Situs inversus is a rare congenital anomaly that was once regarded as a contraindication to liver transplantation because of the technical difficulties associated with the unique vascular anatomy and concern about achieving accurate graft positioning. 1 However, several reports have presented uneventful outcomes after liver transplantation performed in adult recipients with situs inversus, 2-5 and 4 cases of deceased donor organs with situs inversus used for liver transplantation have been reported in the English literature. [6][7][8][9] Here, we present a case of LDLT in an adult using a graft from a situs inversus donor with a successful result.