Microsurgical hepatic artery reconstruction during living-donor liver transplantation by using head-mounted surgical binocular system

Abstract

We have described our experience with arterial reconstruction during living‐donor liver transplantation by using Varioscope^® AF3 – a head‐mounted surgical binocular system with automatic focusing and continuous zoom magnification from 3.6× to 7.2×. From July 1996 to December 2006, 91 grafts were implanted in 89 living‐donor liver transplantation recipients, including two that required retransplantation. For microsurgical reconstruction of the graft hepatic artery, a conventional operating microscope was used in the first 10 transplants and Varioscope, in the subsequent 81. The time required to complete arterial reconstruction while using a conventional operating microscope and Varioscope was 78.6 ± 44.6 min and 35.5 ± 15.5 min, respectively. No arterial complications, including hepatic artery thrombosis, occurred in any of the 89 patients during the observation period. In living‐donor liver transplantation, successful hepatic artery reconstruction can be safely carried out using Varioscope.