Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 27, 2019; 11(2): 234-241
Published online Feb 27, 2019. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v11.i2.234
Acute portal vein thrombosis after liver transplant presenting with subtle ultrasound abnormalities: A case report and literature review
Thomas Couri, Carla Harmath, Talia Baker, Anjana Pillai
Thomas Couri, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Carla Harmath, Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Talia Baker, Department of Surgery, Section of Transplant Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Anjana Pillai, Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Author contributions: Couri T and Pillai A designed the report; Couri T and Harmath C collected the patient’s data; Harmath C, Baker T, and Pillai A provided critical revision of the report; Couri T and Pillai A wrote the report.
Informed consent statement: 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 conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Thomas Couri, MD, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Chicago, 5841 South Maryland Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, United States. thomas.couri@uchospitals.edu
Telephone: +1-773-7021000 Fax: +1-773-7022230
Received: October 7, 2018
Peer-review started: October 7, 2018
First decision: November 15, 2018
Revised: November 27, 2018
Accepted: December 12, 2018
Article in press: December 13, 2018
Published online: February 27, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: Acute portal vein thrombosis (PVT) after liver transplant is uncommon but can cause significant morbidity and mortality. PVT can present with subtle ultrasound abnormalities in the hepatic artery, such as decreased resistive indices and increased diastolic flows, in the absence of frank thrombosis in the portal vein. Long term portal vein patency has been seen with percutaneous thrombolysis, angioplasty, and stent placement as treatment.