Usefulness of microsurgical back-table angioplasty for multiple hepatic arteries in living donor liver transplantation.

Abstract

The graft hepatic artery orifice is tiny in living donor liver transplantation, and therefore, it is more difficult to reconstruct the hepatic artery than in deceased donor liver transplantation. In situ, multi‐vessel hepatic artery reconstruction in living donor liver transplantation is time‐consuming, and reconstructions are often complicated if the hepatic graft has several stumps. We describe two living donor liver transplants using back‐table microsurgical angioplasty to combine two hepatic artery stumps to create a single orifice, and sequential single‐vessel hepatic artery reconstruction in the recipient. Briefly, we used double‐needle interrupted sutures for the two hepatic artery stumps with a biangular stay‐suture method in back‐table microsurgical angioplasty. Each suture was placed from the inner side of the arterial wall to the outer side, which allowed for safe and reliable suturing. After placing the interrupted sutures in the anterior wall, we turned over the vessels in the cold storage on the back table and placed interrupted sutures in the posterior wall. In the recipient, the single stump of the graft was anastomosed to the recipient's hepatic artery using an interrupted pattern and a surgical microscope. The postoperative courses of the donors and recipients were uneventful. Back‐table hepatic artery angioplasty is a feasible option to overcome the complexities of multi‐vessel arterial reconstruction in living donor liver transplantation. We recommend performing secure multi‐vessel hepatic arterial reconstruction adapted to the clinical scenario. Using simple appropriate anastomosis, back‐table microsurgical angiography may provide good results in living donor liver transplantation.