Anesthesia for liver transplantation from a maastricht category 4 non-heart-beating donor

Abstract

Great improvements in patient selection, surgical techniques, perioperative care, and immunosuppression have been made for the optimization of liver transplantation. To increase the number of organs available for liver transplantation, transplant centers have used marginal donors, split livers, living donors, or non-heart-beating donors (NHBDs). Despite recent enthusiasm for NHBDs in liver transplantation, warm ischemic injury to recovered organs has been an obstacle for the wide acceptance of NHBD. In the present case, we have conducted a liver transplantation from a Maastricht Category 4 NHBD. Warm ischemic time was 20 minutes and cold ischemic time was 5 hour 43 minutes. Consequently, the liver was successfully transplanted into the recipient. Copyright © 2010 Korean Society of Anesthesiologists.