[Orthotopic liver transplantation]

Orthotopic liver transplantation is the only method of choice for many severe liver diseases with poor prognosis. The development of liver transplantation programmes is based on medical science achievements and high technology in surgery, anesthesiology and perfusiology. The experience of the Surgery Research Center, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, made it possible to obtain positive results of liver transplantation and posttransplantation management. This in turn provided longer survival for 80% of recipients. At the same time the mortality of potential recipients was 60.4%, which is due to the greater shortage of donor organs and which is the main problem in the development of organ grafting in Russia. The fact that there is a high proportion of children who are recipients for the donor's liver requires that liver transplantation from living related donors should be developed.