Comparison of anesthetic management for adults undergoing living donor liver transplantation and cadaveric liver transplantation

Objective: To investigate the Anesthetic management during the procedure of adult living donor liver transplantation and cadaveric liver transplantation. Methods: Thirty-four patients underwent liver transplantation under general anesthesia from May 2006 to April 2007 in Chinese PLA general hospital. Anesthetic managements for eleven patients who underwent living donor liver transplantation and twenty-three patients who underwent cadaveric liver transplantation were analyzed retrospectively. During the operation, hemodynamics and temperature were continuously monitored. Blood gas, biochemistry and coagulation were detected regularly. Blood loss was calculated. Results: The MELD value of patients who accept living donor liver transplantation was significantly higher than that of patients who accept cadaveric liver transplantation. Perioperational mortality, amount of bleeding, time of anheptic phase and neoheptic phase have no difference between the patients who accept living donor liver transplantation and the patients who accept cadaveric liver transplantation. Conclusions: Anesthetic management in living donor liver transplantation is more difficult than that in cadaveric liver transplantation.