Outcomes of Pure Laparoscopic Living Donor Right Hepatectomy at a Small-Volume Center

Laparoscopic liver donor surgery is a technically difficult and demanding procedure. Our aim was toevaluate its feasibility at an established transplant center. Although our hospital is a small-volume center with <20 liver transplants per year, laparoscopic donor surgery has been performed regularly. In this study, we have reported our experiences with laparoscopic donor right hepa-tectomy and its outcomes.

Between May 2014 and March 2021, 26 deceased donor liver transplants and 37 living donor liver transplants, approved by the Korean Network for Organ Sharing, were performed at out center. From these, we reviewed the medical records, including clinical and demographic characteristics and operative outcomes, of 3 living donors who under-went pure laparoscopic donor right hepatectomy and their recipients.

Each of the 3 laparoscopic donor right hepatectomies took over 10 hours with the prolonged Pringle maneuver time and warm ischemic time. However, there were no significant events during surgery or critical postoperative complications. In the recipients, posttransplant complications included middle hepatic vein obstruction, postoperative bleeding, bile leak, septic shock, and primary nonfunction of the graft. We managed and resolved these complications using various approaches, including retransplant, and all 3 recipients recovered and survived.

Laparoscopic donor right hepatectomy had a relatively long operative time at our small-volume center. We believe that successful laparoscopic donor hepatectomy is possible if the donor is selected appropriately according to the center's experiences and there are constant efforts to overcome the learning curve.