Author/Authors :
nadalin, silvio university hospital tübingen - department of general and transplant surgery, Tübingen, Germany , capobianco, ivan university hospital tübingen - department of general and transplant surgery, Tübingen, Germany , panaro, fabrizio university of montpellier - saint eloi hospital - department of general and liver transplant surgery, Montpellier, France , francesco, fabrizio di bambino gesù children’s hospital - transplantation centre - department of paediatric surgery, Rome, Italy , troisi, roberto gent university hospital - department of general hepato-biliary and transplantation surgery, Gent, Belgium , sainz-barriga, mauricio chu tours university hospital - medical school chambray-lès-tours - department of hpb liver transplant surgery, Chambray-lès-Tours, France , muiesan, paolo queen elizabeth hospital - liver surgery and transplant unit, Birmingham, UK , königsrainer, alfred university hospital tübingen - department of general and transplant surgery, Tübingen, Germany , testa, giuliano baylor university - medical center at dallas, annette c. and harold c. simmons transplant institute, Dallas, USA
Abstract :
Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) sparked significant interest in Europe when the first reports of its success from USA and Asia were made public. Many transplant programs initiated LDLT and some of them especially in Germany and Belgium became a point of reference for many patients and important contributors to the advancement of the field. After the initial enthusiasm, most of the European programs stopped performing LDLT and today the overall European activity is concentrated in a few centers and the number of living donor liver transplants is only a single digit fraction of the overall number of liver transplants performed. In this paper we analyse the present European activities and highlight the European contribution to the advancement of the field of LDLT.
Keywords :
Liver transplantation (LT) , living donor , living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) , Europe
