Liver Transplantation

Fairness in liver transplants can be a constitutional issue

Liver failure is a terrible way to die: a painful belly full of fluid, vomiting blood, mental confusion, and repeated hospitalizations. The only cure is liver transplantation but, as is the case for all types of transplants, there aren’t nearly enough donor livers to go around.

Greater Access to Donated Livers Promised to Transplant Patients

In an effort to fix a system that some health care experts say is deeply flawed, the nonprofit organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system recently voted to revise how donated livers are distributed.

Scientists Grow Tiny Human Livers, Changing the Course of Organ Transplants

Could this eventually mean the end of organ donors?

The Drive for More Living Liver Donors

Only 5% of U.S. donations involve a transfer from a live donor, even though survival rates are better.

The Tricky Ethics of Transplants for Addicts

Many programs require liver recipients to be six months sober, but that policy may funnel organs away from the people they’re most likely to help.

Donated Livers Last Three Times Longer When Supercooled

The procedure was part of an experimental new method for treating donated organs. The method is still in its early stages of development, but it's showing some promise.

Getting a liver transplant could get easier in parts of the US

It's harder to get an organ transplant in California and New York than in Washington state or South Carolina. A plan to redraw the organ donation map may change that.

In World First, Machine Keeps Liver Alive Outside The Body

We can never seem to get enough organ donors—but sometimes donated organs don’t live up to their potential, either. After doctors harvest a liver from a donor, the organ is placed in a cold solution (basically, a bag of ice). If it has to travel far or the recipient isn’t ready, sometimes a liver is chilled up to 12 hours. (Steaks get better treatment.)

Lab-grown liver cells are a step closer to treating liver disease

The liver is a special organ. Mature liver cells - or hepatocytes - have the capacity to continually divide and repair damage. But only so far. Excessive drinking and chronic liver disease, for example, can lead to irreparable damage and the need for a transplant. Unlike some other cells, replicating how liver cells grow in a lab is incredibly difficult. Now researchers at MIT say they have found a dozen chemical compounds that help liver cells maintain their function outside the body. Not only that but the the cells are able to multiply and produce new tissue.

Organ network mapping a path to fairer liver transplants

Desperate patients sometimes travel across the country to get on a shorter waiting list — if they can afford it. On Monday, the United Network for Organ Sharing is proposing a change, redrawing the map that governs how donated livers are distributed so patients wouldn’t need to leave home for better odds.

Searching For A Fairer Way To Distribute Donor Livers

"We're just trying to make it just a little bit more equal so that there's not such a disparity depending on where you live," Heimbach says.

When Donated Organs Go to Waste

Some transplant centers reject a significant portion of the usable organs they receive.

Where You Live Matters for Lifesaving Liver Transplants

“Centralizing care concentrated expertise, but it also isolated certain populations,” said Dr. David Seth Goldberg, lead author and an instructor in medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “In this case, the Midwest became a black hole.”

Your New Liver Is Only A Learjet Away: Part 1 Of 3

In short, the liver transplant allocation system in the US is an astonishingly explicit and fair way to dole out life-saving resources. For all its ethical wonders, however, the liver transplant system is far from perfect.

How live liver transplants could save thousands of lives

The success of liver transplantation represents one of the great miracles of modern medicine. Essentially an experimental procedure 35 years ago, it now represents the only definitive method to cure most patients with end-stage liver failure. The major problem with liver transplantation now is not rejection or infections but rather that there are not enough livers for all the people who need them.

American Liver Foundation

Explore this section to learn more about liver transplant surgery, the circumstances under which it is necessary, and its long-term effects.

European Liver Transplant Registry

A group including the main liver transplant Centers decided to create the ELTR with the following objectives : Registry of all liver transplantation procedures in Europe and a link between European LT Centers.

International Liver Transplantation Society

The International Liver Transplant Society (ILTS) is a young, vibrant growing organization of approximately 650 international members belonging to a multidisciplinary cadre of specialists and healthcare providers, who have joined to promote the focus of ILTS.

Liver Transplant India

We wish to provide hope to those with terminal liver disease by informing them that at a fraction of the cost abroad, liver transplants are being done routinely by the author at his centre in Delhi, with results that match the best in the world.

Liver Transplant Recipient's Website

This website is for the use of New Zealand Liver Transplant recipients, to share their stories and experiences, and foster an awareness within the community at large of the life-saving benefits of receiving an organ.

Liver Transplantation

Liver Transplantation delivers current, peer-reviewed articles on liver transplantation, liver surgery, and chronic liver disease — the information necessary to keep abreast of this evolving specialty.

MayoClinic

Before making a decision about a liver transplant, learn about the organ transplant process, including getting listed in the organ recipient registry, the surgery itself, potential risks and follow-up care.

Penn Transplant Institute

The Penn Transplant Center of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania provides comprehensive medical and surgical care for patients with end stage liver disease requiring liver transplantation.

UCLA Transplantation Services

The liver transplant program at UCLA was inaugurated in 1984 and has grown to be the most active program in the world. Since the program's inception, liver transplants have been performed at UCLA for infants, children and adults, focusing on innovative surgical techniques.