By transplanting a very small part of the liver of a mother on her son suffering from cancer, it is an exceptional operation that the surgeons of the hepatobiliary and digestive surgery department of the Rennes hospital have carried out. Usually, in fact, at least half of the liver must be removed for transplantation. This is why the very large majority of liver transplants are made from deceased donors. But for this operation, the surgeons took the transplant from a living donor and removing half of her liver would have damaged her health. The operation required five hours of intervention for the removal of the organ and seven for the transplant. The two operations were carried out in parallel in two contiguous operating theaters with around ten actors in each.
An operation of nearly 12 hours with one imperative for Professor Karim Boudjema and his team: achieve flawless performance. Today the 30-year-old patient and his mother are doing well.
13 transplants from living donors in 2013
According to the 2013 report of the Biomedicine Agency, “since 1998, the cumulative activity of liver transplant has been 22,157 transplants, including 459 transplants carried out from living donors”. In 2013, only 13 liver transplants were taken from living donors. The collection of liver from living donors decreased significantly from 2007 following the death of a donor, dropping to 18 in 2007 against 36 in 2006 and 49 in 2005.
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