Donor Complications Among 500 Living Donor Liver Transplantations at a Single Center

IntroductionLiving donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has become necessary because of the shortage of cadaveric organs. We retrospectively analyzed 500 living donor hepatectomies using the Clavien classification system for complications to grade their severity.Materials and methodsWe retrospectively identified and applied the Clavien clasification to 500 consecutive donors who underwent right for LDLT left hepatectomy between January 2007 and August 2011.ResultsThe 149 complications were observed in 93 of 500 (18.6%) donors who were followed for a mean 30 months. There wan no donor mortality. Complications developed in 85 (18.6%) right 5 (35.7%) left, and 3 (10%) left lateral segment hepatectomy donors. The overall incidence of reoperations was 7.2%. Seventy-seven of 149 complications were grade I (51.6%) or 9 grade II (6%). The major complications consisted of 27 (18.1%) grade IIIa, 35 (23.4%) grade IIIb, and 1 (0.6%) grade IVa. Grade IVb and grade V complications did not occur. The most common problems were biliary complications in 14 of 181 donors (7.7%).ConclusionDonors for LDLT experienced a range of complications.