ABSTRACT
At present, a large quantity of patients with end-stage liver diseases are still waiting for liver transplantation. Evaluation of donor liver quality with rapid, convenient, non-invasive and accurate methods plays a pivotal role in improving the prognosis and quality of life of liver transplant recipients. No standard evaluation criteria of donor liver quality have been established in clinical practice. Comprehensive evaluation methods have been primarily adopted, including clinical parameters of donors, laboratory examination, imaging examination and pathological examination, etc. Conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound may evaluate the quality of donor liver before liver transplantation and predict the incidence of complications after liver transplantation, which are of significant application prospect in liver transplantation. In this article, the basic methods and research progress on conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound in evaluating the vascular variation of donor liver, micro-circulatory perfusion of liver parenchyma, degree of steatosis of donor liver, degree of fibrosis of donor liver, volume and quality of donor liver were reviewed, aiming to provide more methods and ideas for clinical evaluation of donor liver quality.