Living-donor liver transplantation : present status and future perspective

About 15 years have passed since the first liver transplant froma livingdonor (living donor liver transplantation : LDLT), and the status of the procedure has since been established as a standard cure for end-stage liver disease in Japanwhere liver transplantation (LTx) from deceased donors has not yet been accepted. However, the following problems are surfacing with the increase in the number of LDLTs between adults : graft size mismatching, an ABO blood-type incompatible transplantation, the expansion of LDLTindicationtohepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the relapse of hepatitis C after LDLT, marginal donors, and the freedom fromimmunosuppressive treatment. In this articlewe outline the present conditions of these problems and the future view of the LDLT.