One Liver Could Benefit Two Lives Using New Procedure

One donor liver could benefit two recipients' lives thanks to a procedure in which the organ is split in half and then each half transplanted.

Dr. Philip Seu, director of The Methodist Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine Liver Transplant Program, and Dr. John A. Goss, associate director of the program, performed such a transplant procedure on Tuesday, July 6, giving hope to two patients at two hospitals in the Texas Medical Center. This is only the second time this type of procedure has been performed in Houston.

After splitting a donor liver, the team first transplanted one half of the organ into a 49-year-old woman at Hermann Hospital and then wheeled the second half of the organ over to The Methodist Hospital where a 56-year-old woman awaited her transplant. Each transplant operation took approximately six hours.

"We split the liver in such a way that both portions will get all of the blood supply they need to function," said Dr. Seu of the complex surgery. The liver halves are expected to regenerate to full size in about three to six months following the transplant procedures.

This type of procedure could impact positively the shortage of available donor organs by utilizing one liver to benefit two patients. According to Dr. Goss, 12,200 people in the United States are on the list today awaiting a new liver and only about 4,400 livers will become available this year. However, not every liver is a candidate for splitting. Of those available livers, about 20 percent could fit the criteria - young and in good condition - to be considered for the splitting procedure.

Drs. Goss and Seu performed Houston's first procedure of this kind in May, with a 3-year-old Saudi Arabian boy at Texas Children's Hospital receiving one half of the liver. The boy first came to Texas Children's in September 1998 suffering from Glycogen Storage Disease Type IV, an inherited metabolic disorder that leads to liver failure.

"More children need transplantation than there are pediatric grafts available," said Dr. Goss, director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Center at Texas Children's. "This is a way of getting grafts for pediatric patients in a much quicker fashion and with a lower complication rate by using adult livers."

Drs. Goss and Seu began performing the split liver procedure and transplant in 1997 at UCLA before coming to the Texas Medical Center in July 1998. Both doctors are also faculty in the division of general surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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