[Reduced-size liver transplants in children].
Orthotopic liver transplantation is now used for children with end-stage liver disease, but the scarcity of size-matched liver allografts for children has limited its use. Reduced-size liver transplantation, in which only part of the liver is used as a graft, overcomes size disparity and increases significantly the potential donor pool for children. A 4-year-old boy with fulminating hepatic failure due to hepatitis became the first case of reduced-size liver transplantation in Israel. A left hepatic lobe allograft from an adult donor was used. The boy is home and well 9 months after transplantation. Reduced-size liver transplantation was first performed in a child by Bismuth and Houssin in 1984. Reports from several centers show that survival of recipients of reduced-size liver allografts and the rate of retransplantation does not differ significantly from that in recipients of full-sized livers.