Anatomical and Surgical Basis for Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation with the Right Liver Lobe

Liver transplantation is now a standard procedure for the treatment of end stage liver diseases. Since 1968 until 2012, a number of 113,627 liver transplantations were performed in Europe, in 28 countries and 153 institutions. Despite these impressive figures the waiting list is growing every year. Transplant surgeons were preoccupied to find new ways to increase the donor pool. Among them: reduced size liver transplantation, split liver technique and more recently living donor liver transplantation. At first in the early `90, living donor liver transplantation was used for pediatric patients because the left lateral hepatic segments were harvested. This graft is too small for the metabolic demands of an adult patient. So the next step was the harvesting of the right liver lobe from the donor and transplantation to adult patients. Living donor liver transplantation has gained fast a wide acceptance but there are a few issues to discuss. The main concern is about the donor safety which is a healthy person undergoing major surgery with potential risks. Also the surgical technique evolved due to a better understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the liver and the right liver graft. We discuss here the anatomical and surgical basis for living donor liver transplantation with the right liver lobe.