Pathophysiologic Implications of Cytokines Secretion during Liver Transplantation Surgery

We introduce the following issues of the cytokines secretion during liver transplantation surgery in this review article; 1) the aspect of cytokines secretion during liver transplantation surgery, 2) the evidences of association of cytokines concentration with post-transplantation graft survival, 3) a variety of factors that may influence the secretion of cytokines during liver transplantation, 4) pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine balance during the surgery, and 5) the issues of T helper 1 and T helper 2, and T helper 17 and regulatory T cell signature cytokines secretion and their ratio during liver transplantation surgery. Primary failure of the liver is associated with the secondary dysfunction of virtually all other organ systems, including the cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, coagulation and central nervous systems. In addition, liver transplantation surgery itself is a major surgical procedure with accompanying life-threatening hemorrhage, massive transfusion, clamping and unclamping of great vessels and resulting ischemia-reperfusion injury and cardiovascular instability. Both the underlying liver failure and the surgical events act as stressors and promote the secretion of various cytokines. So it is clinically important to understand above issues regarding the cytokines secretion during liver transplantation surgery. As cytokines secretion has clear relationship with post-transplantation clinical outcomes, future study directions for artificially manipulating cytokines secretion is also suggested for enhancing outcomes of the patients.