Should selection criteria for HCC be the same (or different) between LDLT and DDLT?

Abstract

Since the Milan Criteria (MC) were adopted in many countries as the allocation policy criteria for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma to be transplanted, many groups started to expand it to provide a chance for patients with tumors outside the MC who could achieve similar survival rates. With the scarcity of deceased donors, Asian countries improved the results with living donor liver transplantation, allowing patients outside MC to be transplanted with a living donor. Newer prognostic models and a more profound understanding of tumor behavior are targeting better patient selection. Currently, patients are unevenly selected for liver transplantation and mostly separated into those fulfilling the MC and transplanted with a deceased donor and those with expanded criteria and transplanted with a living donor. In this paper, insight is brought into this debate.

Keywords

Living donor / hepatocellular carcinoma / alpha-fetoprotein

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