Current status of liver transplantation in children

Remarkable short-term successes in providing transplants for thousands of children with liver failure have brought challenges into sharp focus. Clinicians must seek to move the life-giving science of transplantation toward a new goal: providing long lifetimes of excellent graft function with minimal toxicity from immunosupressive drugs and the hope of freedom from immunosuppression altogether. Pediatric liver recipients, whose grafts may have inherent tolerogenic potential and for whom we can anticipate decades of life after transplant, may prove to be an ideal study population to further these goals.