Hepatology International

, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 34–37 | Cite as

Live donor liver transplantation for alcoholic hepatitis

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Abstract

Liver transplantation is a definitive therapy for patients with end-stage liver disease and cirrhosis, with improvement in survival and quality of life. Patients are carefully screened and selected for this modality of treatment to achieve maximum survival benefit. For example, a patient with hepatocellular carcinoma is a candidate if he or she is within Milan criteria and has no significant comorbidity. Similarly, patients with alcoholic cirrhosis are transplant candidates if they are deemed to have been rehabilitated from abusive alcohol consumption and are at low risk for recidivism. More recently, carefully selected patients with alcoholic hepatitis have been successfully transplanted. The preferred transplantation modality is cadaveric liver transplantation. However, living donor liver transplantation is carried out if there is no cadaveric liver organ allocation system, or if the patient is deemed to be at low priority for cadaveric organ transplantation based on the allocation system. Living donor liver transplantation for alcoholic hepatitis needs to be addressed with this background in mind.

Keywords

Liver transplantation Liver donor 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Faculty development grant from the American College of Gastroenterology and Grants from the NIH NIAAA, R21AA023273-01A1and U01 AA 21788.

Compliance with ethical standard

Conflict of interest

Ashwani K. Singal and Patrick S. Kamath have no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of MedicineUniversity of Alabama at BirminghamBirminghamUSA
  2. 2.Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of MedicineMayo ClinicRochesterUSA

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