[Liver retransplantation: report of 80 cases]

To sum up the clinical experience of liver retransplantation.

The clinical data of patients receiving liver retransplantation in our department between Jan. 1999 and July 2005 were retrospectively analyzed, the cause of retransplantation, timing of retransplantation, technical considerations and the causes of death.

The most common causes of hepatic graft loss and subsequent retransplantation are biliary complications (45.0%). Patients who received retransplantation more than 30 days after their initial transplant fared better than those who received retransplants between 8 and 30 days after receiving their first one (intraoperative mortality rates 19.6% versus 70.0%). The development of sepsis (54.5%) and multiorgan failure (18.2%) accounts for the majority of deaths in retransplanted patients.

Proper indication and optimum operation time, surgical procedure, perioperative monitoring and proper treatment post operation contribute to the increase of the survival rate of the patients receiving liver retransplantation.