Advances in the management of both chronic and acute hepatic disease have been made possible and even mandated by the development of liver transplantation. The clinical use of transplantation has proceeded at a rapid pace since a Consensus Development Conference of the National Institutes of Health concluded in June 1983 that liver transplantation had become a service and not simply an experimental procedure.
The liver can be transplanted as an extra (auxiliary) organ at an ectopic site, or in the orthotopic location after the removal of the host liver (Fig. 1). This article will focus primarily on the orthotopic procedure. However, there has been renewed interest in the auxiliary operation, which will be discussed separately.