Liver allograft pathology in liver/small bowel or multivisceral recipients

Combined liver/small bowel (LSB) and multivisceral (MV) transplantation represents an alternative treatment for patients with short-gut syndrome complicated by end-stage liver disease. However, the question of whether the addition of an intestinal allograft alters the pathologic features of the transplanted liver remains unanswered. We, therefore, evaluated the histologic features of 51 liver biopsy specimens from 13 LSB or MV recipients and compared them with a matched control group of specimens from recipients of isolated liver allografts. In general, the histologic alterations were comparable in the LSB/MV and control groups. The primary difference was that portal and sinusoidal neutrophilia accompanied acute cellular rejection in 10 (63%) of 16 LSB/MV specimens but none of the control specimens. Concurrent culture results were positive in 5 of the 10 cases: bacterial overgrowth of the intestinal allograft was found in 3 cases, and bacteremia in 2 other cases, 1 of which had also a positive liver culture. In contrast, these cultures (n = 7) were negative in the six LSB/MV cases of neutrophil-free acute cellular rejection. Neutrophilia was also present in 26 additional LSB/MV specimens, including instances of preservation injury, sepsis, impaired bile flow due to ampullary dysfunction, and one case without an underlying diagnosis, but its frequency did not significantly differ from that of corresponding control cases. An additional finding was the occurrence of a "fibrosing cholestatic" pattern of acquired hepatitis C in 10 specimens from 2 LSB/MV recipients. Acute cellular reaction-associated neutrophilia in LSB/MV recipients may reflect portal bacteremia resulting from bacterial overgrowth and translocation from the intestinal graft or represent simply a nonspecific hepatic response to intestinal inflammatory processes.