The early liver function recovery in living liver transplantation donors

Objective To investigate the liver function injury and the rate of complications in living liver transplantation donors in different graft type transplantation.Methods Postoperative data of 154 living liver donors satisfying our inclusion criteria were prospectively collected and registered from Jan 2002 to May 2009 in our hospital.We divided the donors into two groups (right-lobe graft, R group and left-lobe graft, L group), and made comparison on the liver function and complications.Results Remnant liver weight in R group were smaller than those in L group (t = 11.418, P ＜ 0.05).the ratio of remnant liver weight to standard liver weight in R group were smaller than those in L group (t = - 5.040, P ＜ 0.05 ) .Peaks of ALT, AST and INR in both groups appeared on the first day after operation, while the peak of TB in R group appeared on the third day after operation.All the index values returned to a normal baseline after reaching its peak.Mean values of TB in R group were higher than those in L group on the 1st, 3rd, 7th day after operation (seperately t1 = 5.285, t3 = 3.747, t7 = 2.729, all P ＜ 0.05).Mean values of INR in R group were higher than those in L group on the 1st, 3rd, 7th day after operation (seperately t1 = 5.260, t3 = 5.035, t7 = 2.267, all P ＜ 0.05).The level of TB in both groups returned to normal range on the 7th postoperative day, while the level of ALT and AST remained twice the upper limits of the normal.There were no deaths; Complications occurred in 53 of 154 donors (34.42% ) , 52/141 (36.88% ) in R group and 1/13 (7.69% ) in L group (x2 = 3.292, P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions Ramnant liver function of R group during early postoperative period was poorer than that of the L group.Donors were safe, though suffering from comparatively high complication rate. Key words: Liver transplantation;  Living donors;  Postoperative complications;  Liver function