Recent advances in understanding and managing liver transplantation

Liver transplantation (LT) has been established as the most effective treatment modality for end-stage liver disease over the last few decades. Currently, patient and graft survival after LT are excellent, with 1- and 5-year survival of 90% and 80%, respectively. However, the timing of referral to LT is crucial for improving survival benefit and outcome. The current shortage of donors and the increasing demand for LT currently lengthen the waiting time. Thus, waiting list mortality is about 10–15%, according to the geographical area. For this reason, over the last several years, alternatives to deceased donor LT and new options for prioritizing patients on the waiting list have been proposed.