Operational tolerance in a pediatric liver transplant recipient. Case report]

Operational tolerance (absence of allograft rejection and good outcome without immunosuppression) has been object of intense research in pediatric liver transplant in the last years. The morbidity and mortality related to long-term immunosuppressive treatment of these patients are well known. We report a case of operational tolerance of our unit in a pediatric liver transplant recipient who is immunosuppressant-free since 16 month after transplant after progressive withdrawal related to asymptomatic Epstein-Barr virus first infection. He has good histological, clinical and serological outcome after 22 month of follow-up. To our knowledge, this is the first operational tolerance reported case in our country after liver transplant in a pediatric recipient and we believe that the study of these patients is important in order to detect characteristics that allow to identify a potentially tolerant group in which it is possible to withdraw immunosuppressive drugs.