Hepatocellular carcinoma that relapsed 54 months after living donor liver transplantation

Yukiko Kanno1, Atsushi Takahashi, Kazumichi Abe

  • 1Department of Gastroenterology and Rheumatology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Japan.

We report the case of a 41-year-old woman with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). She received living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) from her husband for HCC at 36 years of age. She had few risk factors for HCC recurrence, such as elevated alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), protein induced by vitamin K absence (PIVKA) II, vascular invasion, and number, size of tumors. However, recurrent tumors were found in the graft at 54 months after LDLT. Although we examined the sex chromosomes of the HCC by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) methods, the origin of the HCC was unclear. This is a very rare case of recurrent HCC appearing more than 4 years after LDLT in the absence of risk factors for recurrence.