Table of Contents
- Overview
- Risks
- Recovery
- Prevention
- Images
Liver transplant is surgery to replace a diseased liver with a healthy liver.
Alternative Names
Hepatic transplant; Transplant - liver
Description
The donated liver may be from:
- A donor who has recently died and has not had liver injury. This type of donor is called a cadaver donor.
- Sometimes a healthy person will donate part of his or her liver to a patient. This kind of donor is called a living donor. The liver can regrow itself. Both people usually end up with fully working livers after a successful transplant.
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.
The diseased liver is removed from the donor through a surgical cut in the upper abdomen. It is placed into the patient who needs the liver, and attached to the blood vessels and
Why the Procedure Is Performed
Images
Review Date: 05/04/2010
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of
General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington
School of Medicine; and George F. Longstreth, MD, Department of
Gastroenterology, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, San
Diego, California. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical
Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)
