Diagnosis, prophylaxis and treatment of splenic arterial steal syndrome after orthotopic liver transplantation / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the diagnosis,prophylaxis and treatment of splenic artery steal syndrome (SASS),and to evaluate their clinical outcomes in recipients who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT).Methods 1 385 consecutive patients who suffered from liver cirrhosis and had undergone OLT in our hospital between Jan,2004 and Dec,2013 were studied.We hypothesized that patients were at risk of SASS when the calibre of the splenic artery (SA) was 1.5 times larger than the common hepatic artery (CHA) together with splenomegaly (318 patients,23.0％).Further surveillance with Doppler ultrasound (DUS) was carried out immediately at CHA reperfusion during operation.When a sluggish peak systolic velocity (PSV) ＜ 30 cm/s or no flow was detected in a patent hepatic artery,prophylactic SA banding (SAB) was considered.127 patients (39.9％) who fulfilled these criteria were recruited to the intervention group to undergo SAB.Eventually,patients who developed SASS were treated with coil-embolization of the SA (SAE),re-anastomosis of the HA to aorta (HTA),ligation of SA (SAL) or splenectomy (SPT),or retransplantation.Results SAB resulted in immediately increase in the mean PSV of the HA from 19.3 ±5.5 cm/s to 45.9 ± 9.1 cm/s (P ＜ 0.05),and resistance index (RI) of the HA rehabilitated to reasonable levels (0.5 ～0.8),without any HA or biliary related complication in all the 127 patients.17 patients in the control group were identified to have SASS (8.9％).5 of these 17 patients required emergency treatment by coil-embolization.Of the remaining 12 patients,11 who developed hepatic artery thrombosis secondary to SASS required to undergo embolectomy or thrombolysis followed by HTA (4 patients),SAL (3 patients),SPT (5 patients).Three of these patients finally required re-OLT.All these patients obtained acceptable results by these salvage strategies,except 2 out of the 12 patients who died from liver failure.Conclusions SASS is an important but it is often and under-diagnosed cause of graft ischemia after OLT.Prophylactic SAB should be introduced to patients at risk of developing SASS in order to obtain satisfactory results.Coil-embolization of SA shortly after diagnosis is an effective salvage intervention to prevent further progression to develop devastating consequences.