Relationship between variation of donor hepatic artery injury and different procurement methods

Abstract

Objective To investigate the incidence of anatomic variations of hepatic artery and methods of procurement and reconstruction to prevent the accidental injury of the hepatic artery.Methods The clinical data of 843 patients receiving orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) in our hos-pital from June 2001 to July 2006 were retrospectively analyzed. Liver and kidney separate procure-ment was performed for 148 cases and abdominal organ combined procurement in 695. The variations of the hepatic artery as well as the relationship between the anomalous hepatic artery and accidental in-jury of the hepatic artery were analyzed. Results Anatomic variations of hepatic artery which were most frequently observed, were the right hepatic artery originating from the superior mesenteric artery and left hepatic artery originating from left gastric artery. The rate of the anomalous hepatic artery concomitancy increased along with elevation in the rate of accidental injury. Conclusion Abdominal or-gan combined procurement can reduce the incidence of accident injury of hepatic artery. Familiarity of the he-patic arterial variation and careful anastomosis are important to reduce injury of the hepatic artery. Key words: Liver transplantation; Arterial variation