How Living Donor Liver Transplant Works

The Scope · Feb 16, 2016 · 6m

Traditionally, a liver used for transplant came from a deceased donor. Now, a handful of hospitals in the United States have the ability to do what’s called a “living donor” liver transplant. It’s a very complex procedure where a piece of the donor’s liver is put into the recipient. After a short time, the segments in the donor and the recipient naturally increase in size and serve as two functional livers. It is a way to provide patients with a liver before they get really sick. To learn more about this procedure, we asked Dr. Robin Kim, executive medical director of transplants at…