Hypercoagulability after partial liver resection

One concern of living donor liver transplantation remains the risk of morbidity and/or mortality for the donors, including the risk of postoperative thrombosis. We studied the coagulation changes after partial liver resection in 12 living donors and eight patients with non-malignant hepatic tumors (controls) and searched for potential predictive markers of thrombotic complications. Thrombosis (pulmonary embolism and portal vein thrombosis) developed in two donors and two controls. In donors and controls, we observed an early postoperative decrease in coagulation inhibitors protein C and antithrombin together with an increase in factorVIII and von Willebrand factor, which both persisted when prothrombin time had returned to normal. Dysregulation in the haemostatic system was confirmed by increased prothrombotic markers, with a 10- to 30-fold increase in thrombin-antithrombin complexes and moderate increase(1.5- to 2.0-fold) in sP-Selectin. No difference between donors and controls was observed and the data were pooled for comparison of patients with (n=4) versus without (n=16) thrombosis. Thrombin-antithrombin complexes were significantly higher in the thrombosis group, on day 1 (28.8 vs. 13.5 mu g/l, p = 0.027) and day 2 (52.3 vs. 9.3 mu g/l, p = 0.013). sP-selectin was also significantly higher in the thrombosis group on day 2 (103 vs. 53 ng/ml, p= 0.044) and day 4 (116 vs. 58 ng/ml, p= 0.026) after surgery. Our study indicates that improvement of thromboprophylaxis in partial liver resection is needed. It also suggests that thrombin-antithrombin complexes and sP-selectin could serve as early biological predictors of thrombotic complications in the post-operative period.