ORIGINAL PAPER Liver transplantation and neurological side effects Fuat H. Saner & Silvio Nadalin & Arnold Radtke & Georgios C. Sotiropoulos & Gernot M. Kaiser & Andreas Paul Received: 2 April 2008 / Accepted: 28 October 2008 / Published online: 13 January 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Advances in liver transplantation (LT), particularly in immunosuppression and intensive care treatment have had increased the number of long-term survivors following liver transplantation. In order of more long-term survivors, reports about neurological complication following liver transplantation are increasing. Neurological complications are not uncommon in liver transplant recipients, which contribute to a longer ICU- and in-hospital stay. Every effort should be focused on early detection to prevent the patient from this life-threatening event, which is often associated with poor life quality. Keywords Liver transplantation . Immunosuppression . Calcineurininhibitor . Neurological complication Abbreviations CNS central nervous system LT liver transplantation CSA Cyclosporine A TAC Tacrolimus CNI Calineurininhibitor Introduction When liver transplantation was first performed in 1963 by Thomas Starzl (Starzl et al. 1965, 1985), it was considered as a high risk treatment with a 1-year survival of only 20% (Starzl et al. 1965, 1985). One of the main causes of death was an acute or Metab Brain Dis (2009) 24:183–187 DOI 10.1007/s11011-008-9119-0 F. H. Saner (*) : S. Nadalin : A. Radtke : G. C. Sotiropoulos : G. M. Kaiser : A. Paul Department of General-, Visceral and Transplant Surgery, University Hospital Essen, Hufelandstr. 55, 45122 Essen, Germany e-mail: fuat.saner@uni-due.de