Domino liver transplantation using FAP grafts. HUC experience--hopes and realities

Domino liver transplantation using FAP livers (DLTx/FAP) has become a worldwide strategy that is contributing significantly to the increase in liver grafts offered in Portugal. The safety of the procedure both in the FAP donors and in the recipients is emphasized in the series of 64 DLTx/FAP that has already been performed in the Hospital of the University of Coimbra (HUC). The occurrence of amyloidosis in the long-term survivors after DLTx/FAP is a serious possibility, although after 6 and 7 years post-transplant no symptoms have been reported by any of the patients. Indeed, amyloid deposits, although small, have been found in the skin and nerve biopsies of the first domino recipients (HUC unpublished data). Hopes that the disease will have a slow course in non-genetically affected patients still awaits the proof of time. Thus, DLTx/FAP should be considered an experimental procedure, although there is good reason to expect that the amyloidosis in the DLTx/FAP recipients will have a longer time course than in the genetically affected donors. The ethical implications of all these facts and expectations are discussed. A case by case approach is recommended. In such an approach, individual prognosis, urgency, graft shortage and the will of very well-informed patients or their legal representatives are determinants for judicious decisions when considering DLTx/FAP in patients under 50 years of age.