Volume 84 - 2021 - Fasc.2 - Editorial
Essential reading from the editor’s desk
With summer 2021 slowly approaching and vaccination
campaigns catching up, exit strategies from the currrent
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are
being laid out, providing hope for a better second half
of 2021 and 2022. This crisis has had a profound impact
on the functioning of our gastroenterology services,
including the challenges of developing numerous
strategies to protect both our patients and staff from
COVID-19 (1). Also our transplant programmes have
suffered from this crisis through organ donor shortage
and reduction of capacity of the operating theatre and the
intensive care unit. Last year, the Belgian Liver Intestine
Transplant Committee (BeLIAC) have published their
recommendations in an attempt to mitigate the negative
effects of the pandemic on the transplant programmes
and highlighted the limited number of donor organs as
the most important roadblock to move forward in liver
transplantation (2). In the current edition the Acta, Dr.
Dahlqvist and colleagues from the BeLIAC further
elaborate on potential strategies to expand the pool of
transplantable organs, especially in light of emerging
indications for life-saving liver transplantation such as
refractory alcoholic hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma
outside the standard indications and liver-metastasized
colorectal cancer (3).
