Role of MRCP in assessment of biliary variants in living donor liver transplantation

Introduction

Liver transplantation can be done by three different methods: Cadaveric, heterotopic and living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). In LDLT usually the right lobe of a donor liver is transplanted into the patient after proper volumetric studies. The native patient bile ducts are connected to the biliary tree of the transplanted liver segment.

Patients and methods

From January 2010 to August 2011, 50 potential LDLT donors were evaluated with preoperative MRCP.

Results

The radiologist evaluated the visualization of the common duct, right and left intra-hepatic ducts, and insertion of the right posterior lobe duct. The data were classified according to Huang and Hakki classifications. According to the more detailed classification of Hakki 13 patients (26%) were Type K1; 15 patients (30%) were Type K2a; three patients (6%) were Type K2b; 11 patients (22%) Type K3a; four patients (8%) were Type K3b; two patients (4%) were Type K4 and no patients were Type K5. Two patients with unclassified anatomical biliary pattern were encountered. In conclusion, this study has shown an extremely high accuracy of MRCP in preoperative assessment of live hepatic donors, which aided in the style and procedure of the operation and ultimately to a high success rate of the transplantation procedures.