Application of a tissue expander for stabilizing graft position in living-related liver transplantation

In living-related liver transplantation, a portion of the whole liver, usually the left lateral segment or the left lobe, is harvested for use as the graft liver. A relatively small graft may twist around the hepatic venous anastomosis, causing outflow blockage. After an initial experience of such a complication in the early post-transplantation period in one case, we began to apply a tissue expander to obliterate the dead space left after emplacement of a relatively small graft. Commercially available tissue expanders, ordinary employed in plastic surgery, were used for five pediatric recipients (6-14 yr old) whose ratio of graft weight to recipient body weight ranged from 0.74 to 1.72. The expander, filled with 240-350 ml saline, was put into the space to the right of the graft. Aspiration of the expander content was started after the 5th-7th postoperative day (POD), at a rate of 50 ml of fluid a day. The expanders were taken out on the 11th-14th POD after complete removal of the content. Complications observed in the five cases were right shoulder pain (5/5), fluid collection after removal of the expander(2/5), chylous ascites (1/5), and one instance of bile leakage. All the complications were successfully managed and controlled conservatively. There was no outflow obstruction detected by Doppler ultrasonography before or after removal of the expander. This is a simple and safe method for preventing the early onset of outflow block after partial liver transplantation.