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A liver transplant, or hepatic transplant, involves replacing a diseased liver with a healthy portion or entire liver taken from a living or deceased donor. It is the treatment of choice for all patients with a severe and irreversible liver or bile duct disease when all other medical and surgical therapeutic alternatives have failed.

The procedure involves a surgical operation to replace the diseased liver with a healthy one. The purpose of a liver transplant is to try and increase the survival time and quality of life of people affected by an advanced case of liver or bile duct disease.

Liver transplant explained in first person

Professionals and patients explain how you live with the disease
A lot of professionals take part in the process, and they must all work as effectively and efficiently as possible to fight for the patient and make them as safe as possible.
I thought it would be much worse, much harder, and it really isn’t. Maybe because we were well-prepared, they told us everything in advance. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought. I recovered very quickly in the hospital.

Types of liver transplant

Liver

Orthotopic whole liver transplant. This is the most common type of transplant. It involves removing the diseased liver from the patient and implanting a whole liver taken from a deceased donor in exactly the same anatomical position.

Partial liver transplant

Partial orthotopic liver transplant. A partial liver transplant consists of removing the diseased liver and implanting a fragment of healthy donor liver in its place (right or left lobes). This procedure is performed in the case of living-donor or split liver transplantations. Approximately 2 months after the transplant the implanted fragment of liver will have regenerated and recovered its full size and total function. 

The main advantage of living-donor transplants over deceased-donor transplants is patients do not need to wait for a compatible cadaver donor to become available. However, this type of transplant can imply a series of disadvantages for the living donor which must be taken into account (occurrence of complications and even risk of death, which is currently less than 0.3%).

Which diseases may require a liver transplant?

Even though a liver transplant theoretically corresponds to the treatment of choice for all patients with a severe and irreversible liver or bile duct disease, it is the hepatologist who will decide whether or not a transplant is indicated. Generally, the diseases that most often require a transplant are: chronic cholestatic diseases (primary biliary cirrhosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, biliary atresia (only affects children));cirrhosis of non-biliary origin hepatitis B and C-related cirrhosis, alcoholic cirrhosis, autoimmune cirrhosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), cryptogenic cirrhosis); liver tumours (hepatocellular carcinoma); acute liver failure (severe viral hepatitis, severe toxic/drug-induced hepatitis, acute liver failure of unknown origin); metabolic diseases (haemochromatosis, Wilson’s disease, tyrosinaemia, glucogenesis) and other diseases (Budd–Chiari syndrome, Caroli’s disease).

Substantiated information by:

Constantino Fondevila Campo
Eva López Benages
Miquel A. Navasa Anadon
Raquel García Muñoz

Published: 20 February 2018
Updated: 20 February 2018

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