Pediatric liver transplantation from neonatal donors

Abstract

Sixteen recipients of neonatal liver grafts were compared with 114 contemporaneous pediatric recipients of grafts from older donors. Graft and patient survival were worse in the neonatal group although the differences were not statistically significant. Patients with neonatal livers who had no technical complications required a longer time postoperatively to correct jaundice and a prolonged prothrombin time. These functional differences were limited to the 1st postoperative month and the end result was the same as with liver transplantation from older donors.

Fig. 1

a Cumulative patient survival rates in group A (n = 16; donor age ≤ 28 days) and group B (n = 114; donor age > 28 days). The difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.37). b Cumulative graft survival rates in group A and group B. The difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.19).—Group A, --- group B

Fig. 2

a Serum total bilirubin, *P < 0.05. b Prothrombin time, * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01. c ALT (alanine aminotransferase) in groups A1 and B1 (patients without complications). –○– Group A1, n = 7; –●– group B1, n = 51

Fig. 3

Body weight changes in eight patients in group A who survived with their primary grafts during the observation period. Dotted line denotes 50th percentile body weight from the study of the National Center for Health Statistics Percentiles [5]