Surgery to replace a damaged or diseased liver with a healthy liver from a donor is known as a liver transplant. People with end-stage liver disease or liver failure often undergo it. The operation is intricate and involves careful planning, getting ready, and post-operative care. For individuals who go through it, it may have a significant influence on their quality of life. While every major operation has certain dangers, liver transplantation has a high success rate and may provide people in need of it a second shot at life.
Types:
There are two kinds of liver transplants, according to the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Most livers utilized in transplantation originate from recently deceased donors who constitute the majority of liver donors. During a dead donor transplant, doctors remove your sick or damaged liver and replace it with the deceased donor's liver.
A healthy living person may sometimes give a piece of their liver, generally to a relative who needs a liver transplant. A live donor is this kind of donor. During a living donor transplant, doctors cut off a piece of the healthy liver from the living donor. Your diseased or damaged liver will then be replaced with a part from a living donor. Soon after the operation, the liver of the living donor will resize to its normal size.
Causes
The US-based Johns Hopkins Medicine claims that maintaining a healthy liver is essential to life. A liver transplant can be required in the event of liver failure. One of the main justifications for a liver transplant is end-stage liver disease, a serious and life-threatening illness brought on by numerous liver ailments.
End-stage liver disease is often brought on by cirrhosis, a chronic liver condition that causes scar tissue to replace good liver tissue. Acute hepatic necrosis, which happens when liver tissue dies as a result of acute infections or responses to medications, medicines, or poisons, and biliary atresia, a rare liver and bile duct disorder that affects neonates, are other disorders that might result in end-stage liver disease. End-stage liver disease may also be brought on by viral hepatitis, metabolic issues, primary liver tumors, and autoimmune hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver brought on by the body's immune system attacking the liver.
Procedure:
Your doctor will recommend you to a transplant center for examination if they think a liver transplant would be a good choice for you. You will be subjected to a number of tests by the transplant center staff before they decide whether to put your name on the transplant waiting list. A psychiatric and social examination, blood testing, and diagnostic exams are all part of the transplant evaluation procedure. The latter might consist of colonoscopies, X-rays, ultrasounds, a liver biopsy, heart and lung testing, and dental examinations. In addition, a mammography, a gynecology check, and a Pap test are options for women.
Each transplant center has its unique eligibility requirements for liver transplant candidates, and the transplant center staff will carefully review all the data acquired from your exams. If you have an ongoing or incurable infection, metastatic cancer, severe heart issues, or any other serious health condition that would not get better with a liver transplant or if you are unable to adhere to a treatment regimen, such as not being able to stop drinking too much alcohol, you might not be qualified for a liver transplant.
