living donor may be a relative, a spouse, a friend, or Family Member.” They’ll have complete medical and psychological tests to keep risks as low as possible. Blood type and body size are crucial to finding a match. A donor younger than 60 years old is ideal.
The liver is received from a donor who’s alive or one who’s died.
- Living donor: In a living donor liver transplant, your doctor will take part of a healthy person’s liver and implant it in you. Both liver segments will grow back to their regular size in a few weeks.
- Deceased donor: A donor who’s died may have had an accident or head injury. Their heart is still beating, but they’re legally dead because their brain has stopped working permanently. The donor is usually in an intensive-care unit. The team turns off life support in the operating room during the transplant.
If you meet the criteria for a transplant but don’t have a donor lined up, the hospital will put you on a waiting list. Each patient is given a priority score based on three blood tests. The score is known as MELD (model of end-stage liver disease) in adults and PELD (pediatric end-stage liver disease) in children.
Patients who have the highest scores and acute liver failure get top priority for a liver transplant. If their condition gets worse, their scores rise, and their priority for transplant goes up. This way, the transplants go to people who need them the most.
There are many people with cirrhosis and decompensated liver disease but not all are appropriate candidates for liver transplantation. The conditions listed below are generally considered to be absolute contraindications to liver transplantation.
- Severe, irreversible medical illness that limits short-term life expectancy
- Severe pulmonary hypertension
- Cancer that has spread outside of the liver
- Systemic or uncontrollable infection
- Active substance abuse (drugs and/or alcohol)
- Severe, uncontrolled psychiatric disease
The average hospital stay after a liver transplant is 2 to 3 weeks. Some patients go home sooner, but others have to stay longer.
According to a study, people who have a liver transplant have an 89% percent chance of living after one year. The five-year survival rate is 75 percent. Sometimes the transplanted liver can fail, or the original disease may return.