A Road Map to Hepatic Artery in Live Liver Donors

Aim of this study is to document the prevalence of anatomical variations of hepatic artery from MDCT abdomen images of live liver donors who have attended to a tertiary care hospital in Kochi. Images of 300 live liver donors were assessed and grouped according to the classification done by Michel. Of the MDCT images in arterial phase observed, hepatic artery is classified as type I in 57.33 % cases, type II in 7 % cases, type III in 8.33 % cases, type IV in 2.33 % cases, type V in 9 % cases, type VI in 0.67 % cases, type VII in 1 % cases, type VIII in 2.33 % cases, type IX in 0.67 % cases and 11.33 % cases were grouped as Others. Type V is the most common hepatic arterial variant in the study as opposed to the most frequently encountered variant in literature (Type III) which stands second here. Type V is the most desired variant by the surgeons in right lobe liver transplantation as the right lobe can be resected with a long arterial trunk and the left lobe supply is not compensated.