Earlier referral should be consider in patients with a TIPS, those with hepatic malignancies, or primary biliary cirrhosis or sclerosing cholangitis. Patients with refractory ascites, severe hepatic encephalopathy, recurrent variceal hemorrhage, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, recurrent bacterial cholangitis, intractable coagulopathy, hepatorenal syndrome or hepatic malignancy should necessitate prompt referral for transplantation evaluation. Transplant Procedure . . . The majority of the liver transplants performed now take 3-5 hours. Average blood usage over the past year has been 5 units of packed red blood cells.
Patients typically spend two days in the intensive care unit.
The overwhelming majority of patients are discharged 5-10 days following their operation. All inpatient stays and outpatient visits are in the J. Kent Trinkle Center for Transplantation Science located on the 12th floor of University Hospital. Follow-up Care . . . Patients are followed closely in our clinic the first 3 months after transplantation. Immunosuppression is rapidly weaned to lower levels during this time.