Development of indications for liver transplantation

Czech version

Authors: Pavel Trunečka
Authors‘ workplace: Klinika hepatogastroenterologie, Institut klinické a experimentální medicíny, Praha
Published in: Gastroent Hepatol 2024; 78(2): 87-94
Category: Hepatology
doi: https://doi.org/10.48095/ccgh202487

Overview

Liver transplantation has been considered the standard treatment method for patients with life-threatening liver disease for more than 40 years. In the initial period, it was mainly indicated for patients with a clearly unfavorable prognosis. Longer survival of recipients was thanks to the improvement in surgical techniques, intensive care, and immunosuppression leading to the targeting of patients with the perspective of long-term survival, i.e. shift away from oncological indications to patients with cirrhosis. The growing disparity between the need for transplantation and the number of donor organs has brought about the necessity of a stricter selection, which, in addition to purely medical considerations, also includes ethical issues of equal access to transplantation and the need to achieve the greatest possible transplant benefit for the widest possible range of recipients while utilizing limited resources. Changes in the epidemiology of liver diseases as well as advances in their treatment affected the development of indications. There has been a significant decrease in the representation of previously dominant viral hepatitis C. Worldwide, the number of patients transplanted for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and alcoholic liver cirrhosis is increasing. Great development has been noted in the last decade in the field of liver cancer, especially for the indications of hepatocellular carcinoma, which is currently the most common indication in many programs. For about a decade, liver transplantation has been performed standardly for hilar cholangiocellular carcinoma and experimentally for unresectable liver metastases of colorectal cancer. These indications are closely related to the dynamics of the local waiting list.

Keywords:

liver transplantation – indications – liver cirrhosis – viral hepatitis – hepatocellular carcinoma – MASLD – acute alcoholic hepatitis

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ORCID autora

P. Trunečka 0000-0002-4753-4419.

Doručeno/Submitted: 26. 3. 2024

Přijato/Accepted: 2. 4. 2024

MUDr. Pavel Trunečka, CSc.

Klinika hepatogastroenterologie

Institut klinické a experimentální medicíny

Vídeňská 1958/9

140 21 Praha 4

pavel.trunecka@ikem.cz