Currently, there are approximately 30 centers which perform this type of surgery. The liver, in many ways, is the ideal organ for live donation, because the organ can regenerate completely within a few weeks after a lobe has been removed. Unlike other donated organs, such as the kidney, which are totally removed, the liver can regenerate to its full size as long as it is a normal liver. The same happens to the recipient when the liver adjusts itself to the size of the recipient. The biggest advantage of live donation is to provide a liver in time before the recipient gets too sick and to allow optimal success after liver transplantation.
Success is entirely dependent upon the status or how sick the recipient is pre-transplant.
There is no advantage from a rejection standpoint in live liver donation. An early thrombosis would require that the child be re-transplanted. It is fortunate that both the donor and recipient surgery in this case went very smoothly and had an excellent result. The MUSC Transplant Center performs about 65 liver transplants per year. Organ donation in this state has improved significantly over the last two years and in this particular case, time was of the essence and a suitable cadaveric organ was not available in a short period of time.