Biliary tract reconstruction: comparison of different techniques after 187 paediatric liver transplantations

Biliary complications after liver transplantation are common and cause significant morbidity and mortality. In order to evaluate the complications related to different sorts of biliary reconstruction, from January 1984 to July 1992 we retrospectively analysed 187 consecutive liver transplants in 136 paediatric patients at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. There were 51 (27.2%) retransplantations. Biliary reconstruction consisted of: type 1-common bile duct-Roux loop (CBD-RL); n = 90 (48.1%); type 2-gallbladder conduit-Roux loop (GC-RL), n = 51 (27.2%); type 3-gallbladder conduit-common bile duct (GC-CBD), n = 20 (10.6%); type 4-common bile duct-common bile duct (CBD-CBD), n = 18 (9.6%); and type 5-common bile duct-common bile duct+gallbladder drainage (CBD-CBD+GB), n = 8 (4.2%). There were, in all 26 biliary complications (14%). Of these 26 complications, biliary stricture was the most common (17/26; 65.3%) and 6 out of these 17 (35.2%) were associated with chronic rejection. Hepatic artery thrombosis was directly related to biliary leakage in 6 out of 26 (23.1%) biliary tract complications. This series demonstrated that type 1 and type 4 reconstructions were related to fewer biliary complications (9/90, 10% and 2/18; 11%, respectively) than the other techniques: 8/51 (16%) for GC-RL 5/20 (25%) for GC-CBD and 2/8 (25%) for CBD-CBD+GB (P = 0.09).