Patrizia Burra (editor) - Textbook of Liver Transplantation: A Multidisciplinary Approach

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book has had a particularly long history, and it took a great deal of time and effort to publish as it was our intention to involve some of the most outstanding experts in the drafting of the chapters, to provide the reader with an international vision, from Europe, to America and Asia. Our aim was to produce a volume that can represent a reference in the world of liver transplantation and beyond.

The first chapters of the book are dedicated to the epidemiology of acute and chronic liver diseases, with respective indications for liver transplantation. Ample space is given to the newest indications, such as early transplantation in acute alcoholic hepatitis and the management of patients with NAFLD and NASH. Complications of the metabolic syndrome, especially cardiopulmonary ones, before and after liver transplantation are also included. A great deal of attention is paid to Transplant Oncology and the most recent indications in this ever-evolving field. What was not possible until a few years ago has now become a reality in the world of transplantation.

Ample space is then dedicated to donor management and organ distribution, considering transplantation in adults, pediatric transplantation, transplantation from living donors, donation after circulatory death, and the use of machine perfusion for organ preservation. Suboptimal donors such as those who are HCV positive, and who are widely used today, were also included.

Numerous chapters are dedicated to intensive care, anesthesia, and surgery, key disciplines for the implementation of liver transplantation. Several specialists of international standing report in detail all the post-liver transplantation medical and surgical complications. Other professionals were also involved, in order to better describe the ethical aspects of transplantation and the role of psychologists, psychiatrists, toxicologists, and social workers in the complex pre- and post-transplant process.

Finally, emphasis is given to the role of referral to the transplant center, the roles of the research manager and data manager in a context as avant-garde as that of liver transplantation. This book could not have ended without a contribution to the most innovative aspects of research, cell therapy, basic science, tolerance and lack of, and uterus transplantation.

I hope that this effort to which all the authors have dedicated their extremely valuable time can be a message for all readers, even in such a dramatic period as that of the Covid-19 pandemic, which we have all dealt with at different levels. The pandemic has certainly put a strain on the transplantation system internationally, but I feel that it has proven able to withstand the enormous difficulties and, in most countries, to maintain an adequate level of activity to ensure the possibility of a new organ and therefore of survival for patients on the waiting list for liver transplantation.