The technical advance and impact of caudate lobe venous reconstruction in left liver: additional safety for living-related donor liver transplantation.

The key to obtaining good overall outcomes in small-for-size liver-graft transplantation is ensuring sufficient blood flow to the graft during the initial period after surgery. In left lobe liver grafting, various reconstruction techniques have been devised to maximize the limited graft volume. The reconstructions of the caudate lobe (CL) vessels were one of the main streams. In this article, we focus on the clinical significance of CL vessel reconstructions after small-for-size liver-graft transplantation and discuss the roles of various techniques. These techniques contribute to the enlargement of the margin of safety with respect to small-for-size liver-graft transplantation.