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What is Living Donation?
Living donation takes place when a person donates a portion of their liver to be transplanted into a loved one in need. The donor is most often a close family member, such as a parent, child, brother or sister. A living donor can also be a more distant family member, spouse, friend or Good Samaritan. This specialized and complex surgical procedure allows both you and recipient to share one liver. We are able to perform this operation because the liver is made up of segments and is one of the only organs that can regenerate and grow back to almost 100% of its size and function.
Purpose
The purpose of living donation is to remove a portion of the donor's liver and place it into a recipient, whose liver is diseased and is in need of a liver transplant. Through donation, your liver is able to grow back to its normal size and you are able to save the life of your recipient.
How it Works
During living liver donor transplantation, you and your recipient each have your own surgical team and are in adjacent operating rooms. In the donor's operating room, the surgeons remove part of your liver, usually the right half or lobe, of the liver. In addition to removing a portion of your liver, the doctors will remove some of the blood vessels and ducts that assist with the function of the liver. In the recipient's operating room, the surgeons are busy removing the recipient's entire diseased liver and getting ready to transplant the donated portion of your liver. The partial liver is immediately placed into the recipient. The blood vessels are attached into the recipient, as are the ducts. The surgery for both the donor and recipient takes about ten to twelve hours. The hospital stay for each of you is ten to fourteen days.
The portion of your liver will grow back in approximately two to four weeks, providing both you and your recipient each with a full size liver.
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