[Anatomic basis of the harvest of abdominal organs for organ transplants]

The abdominal organs removals, with a view to transplants, are complex surgical operations which require a perfect knowledge of visceral vascular anatomy. The common point of these removals is the "birenal en bloc excision", whose we have codified the development. This removal has induced us to revise many points of surgical anatomy and particulary: the connections between the liver and the right kidney; the importance of the mesoduodenum; the relative orientations of the portal vein and inferior vena cava axis; the ureteral vascularisation; the topography and the number of renal arteries; the connections between renal arteries orifices and superior mesenteric arterial orifice. When we have to remove, besides the kidneys, the liver or the pancreas or even the small intestine, surgical problems are the same, but then, the dissections concern also the celiac axis and the superior mesenteric artery. These multiple removals raise also many questions to the anatomist, the most interesting concerning: the multiple hepatic arteries; the connections between celiac branches of the abdominal aorta. All these notions are envisaged not only by the light of the anatomical preparations but also by reference to the clinical experience of the authors.