The liver is the body largest internal organ located below the diaphragm on the right side of the abdomen and performs many major functions like protein and bile production, metabolizes and detoxifies substances/nutrients ingested by the body, stores vitamins/minerals/sugar, produces blood clotting substances, helps fight infections, etc. In patients with liver failure, thus a liver transplant is essential to save life.
Most common cause for transplant in children is Biliary atresia; while in adults, it is cirrhosis, hepatitis, wilson’s disease, etc.
Liver transplantation is a surgery that removes a diseased liver and replaces it with a healthy donor liver. The donor can be a living donor or a cadaver donor.
TYPES OF LIVER TRANSPLANT
Transplant from Living Donor
Transplant from Deceased/Cadaver Donor
PROCEDURE
The liver transplantation can be -
Living donor transplantation, for eg. blood relative or spouse may donate part of their liver. This involves removing a segment of liver from a healthy living donor through a cut in the upper abdomen and implanting it into a recipient. Both the donor and recipient liver segments will grow to normal size in a few weeks.
Cadaveric liver transplantation, where the donor may be a victim of an accident or head injury, has recently died with no liver injury.The donor liver is transported in a cooled salt-water (saline) solution that preserves the organ for up to 8 hours. The necessary tests can then be done to match the donor with the recipient.
Once a matched donor liver is available, the patient is operated under general anaesthesia. The patient’s diseased liver is removed and replaced with the healthy liver from the donor, the blood vessels and bile ducts are then connected to the liver lobe.
DURATION
The operation usually takes between six to eight hours.
The average hospital stay after liver transplantation is two weeks.
RECOVERY
After the hospital stay, it may take another 6 - 12 months to return to normal routine. Regular check-ups, with blood tests and x-rays, etc would be needed for many years.
RISKS
Two major complications following liver transplantation are rejection and infection. The body’s immune system may react against the transplanted organ considering it to be a foreign substance. Anti-rejection medications are given to ward off the immune attack. This suppresses the immune system, thus increasing chances of infection and cancer.
The medicines may also cause high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and increase the risks for diabetes. Besides, there remains a risk of bleeding, stroke, drug reaction, etc.
Liver transplant in India
According to the Indian Law, close relatives of recipient like parents, children, siblings, spouse, can donate the organ. For non related donor, an approval has to be taken from the government authorization committee. No commercial transaction is permitted and we do not arrange donors. Some legal formalities are to be completed through the respective Embassy and details would be made available in case you plan to get the surgery done in India.