About Liver Transplantation

Only curative treatment of advanced stage cirrhosis
Liver of a family member whose blood type is compatible or a person with brain death can be donated for liver transplantation.
The success rate is greater than 80% if it is performed at the right time.
The patients can get back to their daily routine after transplant.

According to international guidelines, each patient with hepatic cirrhosis and the patients with estimated lifetime less than a year should be evaluated for liver transplantation. The severity of a liver disease is graded A to C. Generally, all patients in stage C and many patients in stage B are suitable for transplant. The patient presenting any of the symptoms listed below must obtain a specialist opinion. In this way, specialist in liver transplant can determine whether transplantation or medication is better for the patients.

In any case, the better health state of the patient during transplant, the better the surgical procedure is. The transplant gives negative results in patients with critical disease, malnourished patients, or patients with other organ damage such as active infection and renal disorder in the intensive care unit. Thus, the transplantation should be performed at the right time to have better results. A transplantation surgery timely performed on an appropriate patient using an appropriate donor’s liver results in a success rate of around 80%.

In most of the cases, the above causes are usually resulted in treatable Hepatitis. However, in case of failure to eliminate or treat the trouble factor, cirrhosis occurs and it is usually too late to alter the course of the disease.

Symptoms of Cirrhosis related liver failure

Black feces
Hematemesis
Ascites
Drowsiness and mental confusion
Excess bleeding through small wounds
Jaundice
Renal dysfunction
Fatigue
Low hemoglobin and other blood counts

Pre-transplant Evaluation (Evaluation for Liver Transplant)

This evaluation is recommended when the liver specialist diagnoses the end stage liver disease. Evaluation of the recipient is conducted in three phases and usually takes 5-7 days in the hospital.

Make a definite diagnosis; determine the severity of liver disease and urgency of transplant.
Determine the appropriateness of the patient for transplant; the other systems such as heart, lungs, kidneys, and blood counts are tested to eliminate the presence of any infect ions. Then the liver specialist decides on the patient condition and the success rate of the surgery depending on the cause and severity of the liver disease.
The final phase is to mentally and psychologically prepare the patient. The patient and family is informed about the procedure, hospitalization, postoperative course, follow-up, and aftercare.

After the evaluation, the patient is placed on the waiting list for the transplantation from deceased donor, or the patient will be evaluated for transplant and transplant planning if there is a donor or a family member whose blood type is compatible.

The patient placed on the list of deceased donor transplantation is monitored by the transplant team until suitable liver is found. If the patient condition appears to impair, we usually recommend family to consider living donor transplantation.