Assessment of the results of liver transplantation and definition of criteria for the evaluation of transplant centers.

T HE first NIH Consensus Conference held in Washington in 1983l accepted for the first time, liver transplantation as a treatment modality. The following years were characterised by a dramatic increase in the number of transplant centers both in Europe and the United States. This was paralleled by an increase in the number of indications and potential donor candidates motivating in 1993 a second Conference of the Consensus in Paris on the indications of transplantation.2 Both Consensus Conferences stressed that a careful evaluation of results was necessary to allow the full therapeutic potential of liver transplantation to be realised. Furthermore, it was recognised that there was a need for standard parameters which would facilitate the comparison of results from different units. The aim of this study was to address this issue based on a single-center experience of more than 1000 transplantations.