Neurologic complications of liver transplantation.

A new spectrum of neurologic complications has appeared with treatment of the organ transplant recipient. There are specific problems in liver recipients. Most pertinent is the management of acute fulminant hepatic failure and emerging brain edema that can only be definitively treated with acute liver transplantation. In some patients neurologic complications appear as a result of immunosuppressive drugs or due to infectious complications in immunocompromised patients. Neurologists seeing patients in a transplant unit should be prepared to see confused or obtunded critically ill patients with multiple medical problems, procedures, and polypharmacy. This chapter discusses the challenges of the transplant team and the consulting neurologist.