International Liver Transplantation Society

2025 Toronto Consensus Conference

ILTS-iLDLT Living Liver Donor Safety: Short & Longterm Outcome Consensus Conference 2025

  • #ILTSConsensus2025
  • Toronto
  • March 14, 2025

About the Event

ILTS-iLDLT Living Liver Donor Safety: Short & Longterm Outcome

For children and adults with liver failure and end-stage liver disease, living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is a proven treatment option, with lower waiting list mortality and morbidity, as well as equivalent or superior allograft and patient survival than deceased-donor liver transplantation. Central to the growth and success of a living liver donor program is careful evaluation of the potential donor, including medical, surgical, and psychosocial history to ensure safety of these donors. It is important to the process to convey the potential short and long-term impact of undergoing a surgical procedure that is not needed for their own health, but instead for the benefit of another. While short term outcomes of living liver donors is known, longterm (5 years) outcomes including medical, surgical, psychosocial, pregnancy, infant and maternal outcomes is less known. Currently, there is a paucity of granular data demonstrating long-term outcomes and overall safety specifically in the otherwise ‘healthy’ living liver donor population. There is a need to bring together experts involved in the workup, selection, surgical procedure and follow up of living donors. They need to review, discuss, and reach agreement on safe practice of living donation surgery and short- and long-term outcomes of living donors. The consensus is attended by a select group of senior medical professionals (including surgeons, hepatologists, radiologists, anesthesiologists, scientists, nurses and patient advocates).

Working Groups Will Cover the Following Aspects...

WG chair: Nazia Selzner

WG members: Tiffany Wong, Toru Ikegami, Mettu Srinivas Reddy, Yaman Tokat, Tomoharu Yoshizumi, Anji Wall, Gokhan Kabacam, Vicky Ng (ped tx hepatologist), Swaytha Ganes, Francois Durand, Ted Sakai, Pooja Bhangui, Eric Yao (hematology), Kartik Jhaveri (Radiology), Susan Abbey(psych), Heather Bedanoch (patient partner)

VG: Madhukar Patel, Paolo Magistri, Qasim Khan

 

TOPICS for WG1
  • Who’s an ideal donor?
    • Age, ABO, BMI, etc.
    • What are the acceptable comorbidities?
      • Medical contraindications for donation?
      • Drug history? – neurological, allergies etc.
    • Assessment of liver quality
      • LFT
        • Acceptable limits – derangements before donation?
      • Assessment of steatosis in the donor? (MRI, Fibroscan, LAI, biopsy etc)
        • Acceptable limits
        • Interventions – to improve liver status
      • Procoagulant work-up? Mandatory, what should be done? Family history? Etc.
      • Disease specific work-up and extended tests?
      • Anatomical considerations
        • Mandatory radiological work-up.
          • Is MRI is it mandatory?
        • Absolute contraindication to donation
          • Implications for donor outcome / for recipient outcome
        • Safe remnant
          • Absolute contraindication
          • Relative contraindications
          • Optimizing remnant
        • Previous surgery – previous donations
          • Acceptability consideration

WG Chair:  Kim Olthoff

Panelists: Ki Hun-Kim, Dieter Broering, Subash Gupta, James Pomposelli, Deniz Balci, Yuji Soejima, Alfred Kow, Anand Ghanekar, Avi Humar, Rajesh Rajalingam, Stuart McClusky, Jim Findlay, Nicolas Goldaracena, Nancy Kwan Man

VG: Abdul Hakeem, Alexandra Shingina, Tommaso DiMaira

TOPICS for WG2
  1. Anesthesia
    • Standardized access and what should be minimal monitoring? (Central venous access, arterial line)
    • Locoregional pain control: may reference prior ERAS conference work

2. Surgery

  • Training requirements for ODH, PLDH and RDH. Centre volume – ideal number.
  • What are the standard surgical techniques? Incision – ideal for ODH
  • Inflow control, parenchymal transection techniques- best/preferred, bile duct visualization -ICG, IOC, bile duct division, drain placement?
  • MIS utilization: robotic vs lap? Bile duct division in MIDH
  • Standardized intra-op disaster pathway: in open/lap/robotic – uncontrolled hemorrhage or severe HD instability

WG Chair: Julie Heimbach

Panelists: Dong-Sik Kim, Gonzalo Sapisochin, Mureo Kasahara, Mark Ghobrial, Tarunjeet Klair, Akila Rajakumar, Dimtri Bezinovir, Cynthia Tsien, Gary May (advanced endoscopy), UHN IR, Tess Bitterman, Anne Marie Lapinski, Caitlin Don, Sudhindran

VG: Ryan Chadha, Manikandan Kathirvel, Tommy Ivanics

TOPICS for WG-III

  1. Anesthesia & Hepatology
    • Requirements for 24 Monitoring, pain control, diet advancement, fluid management, ERAS pathway – applications
    • Mandatory protocols – Blood tests (LFTs, lactate) imaging USG-frequency, Triggers for CT
    • Prophylaxis: Antibiotics, DVT, Ulcer—what and for how long
  2. Surgery
  • Management of early complications
  • Biliary – Drain bilirubin, Indications & timing of ERCP Reexploration,
  • Management of Bleed
    • Triggers for reexploration
  • Management of insufficient functional liver remnant – criteria for PHLF, threshold for consideration of LT
  • Management of other serious medical complications: PE, pancreatitis,
  • Standardized post-op disaster plan – Donor mortality

3. Psychiatry & Ethics

  • Timing of Return to work, exercise, driving, sexual health
  • Donors with Post-operative depression or anxiety

Sharing news of poor recipient outcome with donors

WG Chair: Mohamed Rela

Panelists: Zhi-jun Zhu, Elizabeth Pomfret, Avi Soin, Markus Selzner, Jongman Kim, Bijan Eghtesad, Daniel Maluf,  Susan Abbey (psych)(another name), Kym Watt, Anjana Pillai, Sudha Kodali, Paul James (advanced endoscopy), John Roberts, Susumu Eguchi, Albert Chan

VG: Sadhana Shankar, Johns Shaji Mathew, Nicholas Syn

  1. Hepatology & Surgery
  • Defining standard long-term follow-up benchmarks
  • Review protocols- Minimum requirement
    • Mandatory frequency, blood tests, imaging etc.
  • Management of Late Complications
    • Biliary strictures
    • Diaphragmatic Hernia
    • Wound complications
    • Chronic pain
  1. Psychiatry & Ethics
  • Quality of Life, Body Image, Sexual & Reproductive health
  • Long term psychosocial support – suicides, recipient deaths etc
  • Istanbul declaration
  • International LDLT donor registry

Jury:

Jed Gross

Chantal Wiggins

Hiroto Egawa

Nancy Ascher

Valeria Mas

John Fung

Norah Terrault

Kyung Suk-Suh

Chao-Long Chen

Patrizia Burra

Consensus Conference Begins in...

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Interested in being a part of the Toronto Consensus as a Sponsor?

ILTS Executive Committee 2024-2025

Nazia Selzer

Nazia Selzer

ILTS President

Valeria Mas

Valeria Mas

ILTS President-Elect

R.Mark Ghobrial

R.Mark Ghobrial

Past President

François Durand

François Durand

Secretary

Bijan Eghtesad

Bijan Eghtesad

Treasurer

iLDLT Leadership

Kim M Olthoff

Kim M Olthoff

President

Kwang Woong Lee

Kwang Woong Lee

Secretary General

James Pomposelli

James Pomposelli

Executive Secretary

Conference Chairs

Nazia Selzner

Nazia Selzner

Canada

Kim Olthoff

Kim Olthoff

USA

Mohamed Rela

Mohamed Rela

India

Julie Heimbach

Julie Heimbach

USA

Scientific Committee Chairs

Prashant Bhangui

Prashant Bhangui

India

Ashwin Rammohan

Ashwin Rammohan

India

Blayne Amir Sayed

Blayne Amir Sayed

Canada