BACKGROUND: The patients with end-staged liver failure are subjected to various and complex coagulopathies during liver transplantation. Particularly, fibrinolysis can occur preoperatively and is more prominent and aggravated right after reperfusion to the donated liver. It becomes the main cause of bleeding intraoperatively and postoperatively. We examined the effect of low dose aprotinin on the fibrinolysis and the transfusion amount of the packed red cell during operation.

METHODS: We divided the patients into an experimental group, administrating aprotinin (n = 20) and a control group, administrating same volume of normal saline (n = 28). Heparinase-guided thromboelastograph (h-TEG) of preanhepatic 60 minutes was done as basic value. Then we administrated 1 million KIU aprotinin for 20 minutes and infused 0.25 million KIU /hr aprotinin for 3 hours of preanhepatic period in the experimental group. Just after the reperfusion to donated liver, another h-TEG of postanhepatic 10 minutes was done. We obtained CL 60 (clot lysis 60) and MA (maximum amplitude) among the TEG parameters and counted the total number of packed red cell transfused before and after the reperfusion period.

RESULTS: The results showed that the experimental group had significantly higher value of CL 60 and MA in the h-TEG of postanhepatic 10 minutes and lower amount of packed red cell transfusion during the period after the reperfusion.

CONCLUSIONS: The administration of low dose aprotinin during preanhepatic period reduced the activation of fibrinolysis and the total packed red blood cell transfusion after the reperfusion in liver transplantation.