Multislice CT anatomy of hepatic artery in patients undergoing liver transplantation using 3D reconstructions

To evaluate the accuracy of multislice CT angiography, investigating vascular anatomy and anatomical variants of hepatic artery in patients undergoing liver transplantation.

The study concerns 20 patients (12 male and 8 female) candidates to liver transplantation were examined using multislice CT with a triphasic protocol following the administration of Iomeron 400 mg/ml at a rate of 5 ml/s using Sure Start technique. The following protocol was applied in all patients: row thickness 3, pitch 5.5, image thickness 3, reconstruction 1. Vascular reconstruction was obtained with 3D Maximum Intensity Projection and Volume Rendering algorithms using the data of the arterial phase. All variants were classified by Michels's classification. All patients were transplanted and the anatomical results of CT have been verified surgically.

CT angiography detected 5 anatomical variants of the hepatic artery and one aneurysm of the celiac trunk; the other 14 patients had a normal anatomy. In all patients the results of CT correlates with the surgical ones.

Our results suggest that multislice CT angiography is useful for planning surgical transplantation, giving precise information about vascular anatomy and its variants, (those are common). In our opinion this technique can replace conventional angiography.