Noriyo Yamashiki, Ryosuke Tateishi, Haruhiko Yoshida, Shuichiro Shiina, Takuma Teratani, Shinpei Sato, Norio Mine, Yuji Kondo, Takao Kawabe, Masao Omata – 21 April 2005 – The dropout from the waiting list for liver transplantation among patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is reportedly as high as 12% to 40% per year, mostly due to tumor progression. Considering the scarcity of donor organs, it would be beneficial if we could retain them within the Milan criteria with a bridging therapy.

Marco Vivarelli, Alessandro Cucchetti, Fabio Piscaglia, Giuliano La Barba, Luigi Bolondi, Antonino Cavallari, Antonio Daniele Pinna – 21 April 2005 – To confirm recent observations about the relationship between immunosuppression and the recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after liver transplantation (LT), we retrospectively analyzed 70 consecutive HCC patients who underwent LT and received cyclosporine (CsA)–based immunosuppression.

Gero Puhl, Klaus‐D. Schaser, Daniel Pust, Katrin Köhler, Brigitte Vollmar, Michael D. Menger, Peter Neuhaus, Utz Settmacher – 21 April 2005 – Microcirculatory disturbances are an initial causative determinant in hepatic ischemia/reperfusion injury. The aim of this study was to assess sinusoidal perfusion during human liver transplantation using orthogonal polarization spectral imaging and to evaluate the significance of intraoperative microcirculation for early postoperative graft function.

Ken‐ichi Takahashi, Kazuo Chin, Kohei Ogawa, Mureo Kasahara, Takanori Sakaguchi, Satoshi Hasegawa, Kensuke Sumi, Takaya Nakamura, Akira Tamaki, Michiaki Mishima, Takashi Nakamura, Koichi Tanaka – 21 April 2005 – A 16‐year‐old male with exertional heat stroke (EHS) had extensive hepatocellular damage, severe rhabdomyolysis, renal failure, and coma. Hemodiafiltration was started on day 2 and living donor liver transplantation was performed on day 3. He received continuous mechanical ventilation with intubation before and after the surgery.

Yuichi Tanaka, Hironori Haga, Hiroto Egawa, Tomoko Okuno, Aya Miyagawa‐Hayashino, Tatsuaki Tsuruyama, Michiyo Kambe, Hiroyuki Marusawa, Tsutomu Chiba, Toshiaki Manabe – 21 April 2005 – Several reports have shown detection of recipient‐type ABO histo‐blood group antigens (r‐ABOAg) in the liver allograft, which may represent either true intragraft chimerism or other events such as cell injury. Little is known about factors that affect the timing and extent of r‐ABOAg expression in the graft.

Myron Schwartz, Manoussos Konstadoulakis, Sasan Roayaie – 21 April 2005

Marcelo Enne, Lucio Pacheco‐Moreira, Elizabeth Balbi, Alexandre Cerqueira, Giuseppe Santalucia, José Manoel Martinho – 21 April 2005 – The shortage of organ donors for low‐weight liver transplant recipients, especially small children, has led to the development of new surgical techniques to increase the donor pool. Almost all of these techniques use the left lateral segment (Couinaud's segments II and III), but even this graft could be too large for children under 10 kg, and further reduction could be necessary. Few articles address the issue of monosegmental liver transplantation.

Haithem Chtioui, Arthur Zimmermann, Jean‐François Dufour – 21 April 2005

James Neuberger, Douglas Thorburn – 21 April 2005 – Background and aims: A consensus has been reached that liver donor allocation should be based primarily on liver disease severity and that waiting time should not be a major determining factor. Our aim was to assess the capability of the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score to correctly rank potential liver recipients according to their severity of liver disease and mortality risk on the OPTN liver waiting list.

Kenneth S. Stewart, Chun H. Rhim, Michelle L. Bahrain, Zahra D. Ashkezari, Metin Ozdemirli, Thomas M. Fishbein, Lynt B. Johnson, Amy D. Lu, Jeffrey S. Plotkin – 21 April 2005 – In 2002 there were more than 5,000 liver transplantations performed in the United States. As of February 2004 there were more than 17,000 registrations for liver transplantation. As more organs are transplanted and surgical techniques improve, unique causes of morbidity and mortality will become apparent.