Extended criteria (marginal) donor graft in deceased-donor liver transplantation in Japan

Abstract

The severe scarcity of deceased donors is a critical issue in Japan, which leads to maximal effort to us limited brain-death donors for transplantations. The words “extended criterial donor graft" or “marginal donor graft" usually encompass the liver grafts from donors with known risk factors for primary nonfunction or graft dysfunction after liver transplantations. Steatosis of the graft, aged donors, cardiac death donors, hepatitis virus positive donors, split liver grafts, and grafts with long cold ischemic time are usually referred to as marginal grafts; however, there are no established criteria for the extended criteria liver graft so far. This article reviews the extended criteria (marginal) donor graft in deceased donor liver transplantations in Japan, with special reference to split liver transplantation.