Percutaneous Endovascular Treatment of Hepatic Artery Stenosis in Adult and Pediatric Patients After Liver Transplantation

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of percutaneous endovascular techniques for the treatment of hepatic artery stenosis (HAS) occurring after liver transplantation (LT) adult and pediatrics patients From February 2003 to March 2009, 25 patients (15 adults and 10 children) whose developed HAS after LT were referred to our interventional radiology unit Technical success was achieved in 96% (24 of 25) of patients Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) was performed in 13 patients (7 children) and stenting was performed in 11 patients (2 children) After the procedure, all patients were followed-up with liver function tests, Doppler ultrasound, and/or computed tomography Mean follow-up was 15 8 months (range 5 days to 58 months) Acute hepatic artery thrombosis occurred immediately after stent deployment in 2 patients and was successfully treated with local thromholysis One patient developed severe HA spasm, which reverted after 24 h After the procedure, mean transstenotic pressure gradient decreased from 30 5 to 6 2 mmHg Kaplan-Meyer curve of HA primary patency was 77% at 1 and 2 years During the follow-up period 5 patients (20%) had recurrent stenosis and 2 patients (8 3%) had late thrombosis Two of 7 patients with stenosis/thrombosis underwent surgical revasculanzation (n = 1) and liver retransplantation (n = 1) Six (25%) patients died during follow-up, but overall mortality was not significantly different when comparing patients having patent hepatic arteries with those having recurrent stenosis/thrombosis There were no significant differences in recurrent stenosis/thrombosis and mortality comparing patients treated by PTA versus stenting and comparing adult versus pediatric status Percutaneous interventional treatment of HAS in LT recipients is safe and effective and decreases the need for surgical revasculanzation and liver retransplantation However, the beneficial effects for survival are not clear probably because the clinical complexity of many of these cases.