Outcomes of Liver Transplantation in Low Weight Children After Reducing the Lateral Segment of a Living Donor, Adapting the Shape and Size of the Graft to the Needs of the Recipient

The shortage of organs has always been a problem in pediatric liver transplants due to the lack of donors with an adequate size. Different techniques of hepatic reduction have been described that allow to use larger organs in the pediatric population. However, in these techniques the maximum reduction achieved by segments 2 and 3 is excessive for low-weight children. Since 1997 the liver transplantation group at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires has developed and practiced a technique called hepatic hyper-reduction, which consists in reducing the lateral segment of a living donor, adapting the shape and size of the graft to the needs of the recipient. The investigators have performed approximately 50 pediatric liver transplants with live donors in low weight children in whom the hyper-reduction technique has been applied. The aim of the present study is to describe postoperative morbidity and mortality and analyze overall and graft survival.