Liver is the largest body organ, and plays a vital role in food digestion, energy storage, and removal of toxins. Therefore, when the lever is diseased and other treatments fail, a liver transplant is recommended. It’s a treatment option for end-stage lever diseases and acute lever failures.
Liver transplantation is the process of replacing a diseased liver with a healthy liver from another person.
What are the types of liver transplant?
Deceased donor transplants
Most livers for transplants come from people who have just died. When the surgeon replaces a diseased or injured liver of a living person with the deceased donor’s liver, it’s called a Deceased Donor Transplant. Adults typically receive the entire liver. However, surgeons may split a deceased donor’s liver into two parts; the larger part for an adult, and the smaller for a younger adult or child.
Living donor transplants
Sometimes a healthy living person donates part of his or her liver, most often to a family member who is recommended for a liver transplant. This type of donor is called a living donor. During a living donor transplant, surgeons remove a part of the living donor’s healthy liver, and place it in the diseased person after first removing the diseased person’s unhealthy liver. The living donor’s liver grows back to normal size soon after the surgery. The part of the liver that the patient receives also grows to normal size. Living donor transplants are less common than deceased donor transplants.
Life after a liver transplant
Patient’s symptoms improve soon after the transplant, but most people will need to stay in the hospital for up to 2 weeks.
Recovering from a liver transplant can take a long time, but most people will gradually return to many of their normal activities within a few months.
The patient will need regular follow-up appointments with a liver transplant consultant to monitor the progress and will be given immunosuppressant medication that helps to stop the body from rejecting the new liver. These usually need to be taken for a better quality life.
