Living Donor Liver Transplant
Living donor transplant means the donor is a willing living person. The donor has the operation first in which the surgeon removes either the left or right side (lobe) of their liver.
The recipient is then opened up and the diseased liver is removed. Then, as with an orthotopic transplant, the portion of the liver taken from the donor is substituted allowing the connections with blood vessels and bile ducts.
The transplanted lobe is quickly regenerating itself. Even the missing part of the liver grows again for the donor. The new lobe in the recipient normally grows within a week to 85 per cent of the original liver level.
