Surgical anatomy of hepatic transplantation

Hepatic transplantation was pioneered by the work of Starzl and colleagues, first at the University of Colorado and later at the University of Pittsburgh. With the meeting of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference in June of 1983, and their conclusion that liver transplantation was no longer experimental, orthotopic liver transplantation entered the "modern era." The release of cyclosporine by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to transplant centers around the country, at the end of 1983, allowed for significant expansion of hepatic transplantation programs. Hepatic transplantation remains, however, the most difficult and complex of all solid organ transplants. A thorough grounding in the anatomic variations of hepatic segmental, arterial, venous, and ductal anatomy is only the first step in the successful completion of this challenging procedure.