Aim: 1. To show how in a program of pediatric liver transplantation (PLT) with 12 years of experience, the continuous use of technical innovations has allowed to improve the results and to treat the most complex cases. 2. To point out that when the immediate results of the transplant improve and the evolution time get longer, the late complications become the main source of concern.
Material and methods: The graft survival and the incidence of early surgical complications was compared between the first 100 PLT and the last 100 PLT (Total 235 PLT). The patients survival was also compared between the first and the last 5 years. In every case it was analyzed the age and weight of the children at the time of the transplant and the type of graft (full or reduced liver). The incidence of late complications in the global series was also analyzed, especially the posttransplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) and the late biliary and vascular complications.
Results: There are significant differences between the first 100 PLT and the last 100 PLT in relation with the age of the patients (6.8 +/- 0.6 vs 4.2 +/- 0.5 years), the number of children younger than 1 year (4 vs 28), weight (22.4 +/- 1.2 vs 16.9 +/- 1.7 kg), number of PLT in children under 10 kg (7 vs 43), use of reduction techniques (7 vs 49), rate of hepatic artery thrombosis (12% vs 3%), and rate of early biliary complications (13% vs 4%). The 5 years survival of the graft was 51% in the first 100 PLT vs 65% in the last 100 PLT, and the 5 years patients survival was 70.1% in the first 5 years of the program vs 79.6% in the last 5 years. Among the late complications in the global series, 13 cases of PTLD (2 deaths) have special relevance, 6 cases of late anastomotic biliary stricture, 4 cases of portal stenosis, 1 arterial thrombosis, 1 death due to a fulminant sepsis and another death because of a colitis with multiple hepatic abscess.
Conclusions: 1. The result of PLT improve, despite of the fact that in the last years the difficulty of the surgical procedures have increased (the patients are younger, with less weight and the reduction techniques are used more frequently). 2. The late complications have a significant influence in the prognosis, being that influence not completely established yet.