Prolonged Anhepatic Phase after Liver Transplantation Failure Followed by ABO Incompatible Liver Transplantation: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Author Info

Benjamin Zribi David Dahan Eviatar Nesher Jonathan Cohen Liran Statlender Marius Braun Olivier Zerbib Pierre Singer Sornwichate Rattanachaiwong Vered Yahalom

Corresponding Author

Olivier Zerbib
Department of General Intensive Care, Rabin Medical Center, Petah Tikva, Israel

A B S T R A C T

Objective: To describe the experience with a multimodal therapeutic approach in a patient who developed toxic liver syndrome and fulminant hepatic failure following orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) as a result of occlusion of the portal vein. Setting: Department of Intensive Care. Patient: A patient with liver cirrhosis secondary to autoimmune hepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). Interventions: Transplant hepatectomy, plasmapheresis and retransplantation. Case Report: A 39-year-old man underwent an elective OLT. A routine postoperative doppler ultrasound examination a few hours after surgery revealed portal vein thrombosis. Attempts at recanalization failed, and the patient developed acute fulminant liver failure, which remained resistant to supportive therapy. A transplant hepatectomy was performed 9 hours later and plasmapheresis started. Following a 10-hour anhepatic period, the patient received a second liver, from an ABO-incompatible donor. The patient underwent column plasmapheresis and subsequent splenectomy to remove anti-B antibody to preserve the incompatible transplanted liver from immunogenic complications. The patient spent a total of 21 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) before being discharged to a step-down ward. Conclusion: Our experience suggests that multimodal therapy, including transplant hepatectomy, plasmapheresis and retransplantation of an even non-ABO compatible liver may result in the successful outcome in patients with acute fulminant liver failure complicating OLT.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report and Review of the Literature

Publication history

Received: Mon 11, May 2020
Accepted: Thu 28, May 2020
Published: Thu 04, Jun 2020

Copyright

© 2023 Olivier Zerbib. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JCMCR.2020.01.08