Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Mar 18, 2024; 14(1): 89223
Published online Mar 18, 2024. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v14.i1.89223
New therapeutic strategy with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for refractory hepatopulmonary syndrome after liver transplant: A case report
Belinda Sánchez Pérez, María Pérez Reyes, Jose Aranda Narvaez, Julio Santoyo Villalba, Jose Antonio Perez Daga, Claudia Sanchez-Gonzalez, Julio Santoyo-Santoyo
Belinda Sánchez Pérez, María Pérez Reyes, Jose Aranda Narvaez, Julio Santoyo Villalba, Jose Antonio Perez Daga, Julio Santoyo-Santoyo, Hepatobiliary and Trasplantation Unit, General and Digestive Surgery Department, University Regional Hospital, Malaga 29010, Spain
Claudia Sanchez-Gonzalez, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Regional University Hospital of Malaga, Malaga 29010, Spain
Author contributions: Sánchez Pérez B wrote the manuscript; Santoyo-Santoyo J, Perez Reyes M, and Santoyo Villalba J performed the research; Aranda Narvaez J and Sánchez Pérez B performed the surgery; Perez Daga JA analyzed the data; Sanchez-Gonzalez C translated and submitted the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Claudia Sanchez-Gonzalez, MD, Doctor, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Regional University Hospital of Malaga, No. 84 Av. de Carlos Haya, Malaga 29018, Spain. csangon95@gmail.com
Received: October 24, 2023
Peer-review started: October 24, 2023
First decision: November 21, 2023
Revised: November 24, 2023
Accepted: December 22, 2023
Article in press: December 22, 2023
Published online: March 18, 2024
Core Tip

Core Tip: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has been used as a rescue therapy in refractory hypoxemia after liver transplant (LT) in hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS), with positive results. We present a patient with HPS who underwent LT and developed refractory hypoxemia requiring postoperative ECMO support. The literature demonstrates an 80% survival rate with an acceptable morbi-mortality. ECMO can become the central axis in the treatment of patients with HPS which present with refractory hypoxemia after LT.