Quote:
Originally Posted by friskyfemme
I had plannd to do this a couple of years after a news article published about a local guy needing a bone marrow transplant. However, during my procrastination, the young man died. I will never know if I could have been a match. Still wears on me. I didn't know there was a registry. Thanks for bringing this to my awareness. And stem cell donation!?
How does that work with live donors? Did I miss that?
|
Live Donor Liver Transplantation
Sander Florman1 and Charles M. Miller2
1Tulane University School of Medicine, Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, New Orleans, LA,
and 2The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
Received January 10, 2005; accepted February 2, 2006.
With ever-increasing demand for liver replacement, supply of organs is the limiting factor and a significant number of patients
die while waiting. Live donor liver transplantation has emerged as an important option for many patients, particularly small
pediatric patients and those adults that are disadvantaged by the current deceased donor allocation system. Ideally there would
be no need to subject perfectly healthy people in the prime of their lives to a potentially life-threatening operation to procure
transplantable organs. Donor safety is imperative and cannot be compromised regardless of the implication for the intended
recipient. The evolution of split liver transplantation is the basis upon which live donor transplantation has become possible.
The live donor procedures are considerably more complex than whole organ decreased donor transplantation and there are
unique considerations involved in the assessment of any specific recipient and donor. Donor selection and evaluation have
become highly specialized. The critical issue of size matching is determined by both the actual size of the donor graft and the
recipient as well as the degree of recipient portal hypertension. The outcomes after live donor liver transplantation have been
at least comparable to those of deceased donor transplantation. Nevertheless, all efforts should be made to improve deceased
donor donation so as to minimize the need for live donors. Transplant physicians, particularly surgeons, must take
responsibility for regulating and overseeing these procedures. Liver Transpl 12:499-510, 2006. © 2006 AASLD.