Tampa General Hospital has entered a new chapter of medical history. Last month, TGH performed their first living donor liver transplant. This is also the first surgery of its kind on Florida’s West Coast.
Joining us is Dr. Kiran Dhanireddy, Vice President and Chief of the TGH Transplant Institute and Surgical Director of the Comprehensive Liver Disease and Transplant Center at the TGH Transplant Institute, who performed the recipient’s transplant.
TGH has been performing liver transplants since 1987, but Dr. Dhanireddy tells us what makes this form of surgery different.
He says this is a living donor transplantation. A healthy 38-year-old man donated about 2/3s of his liver to his mother. The partial liver will regenerate in both of them to almost its full size within a few months!
Prior to this first living donor liver transplant, TGH had performed nearly 2,500 deceased donor transplants and was the seventh-largest program in the country. But with a living donor transplant, the patient can schedule the surgery as soon as they find a donor, and not risk deteriorating health or possible death waiting for a deceased donor.
This new form of surgery widens the donor pool.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there are currently more than 100,000 people in need of a life-saving organ transplant with approximately 10,000 awaiting liver transplant. All it takes is a simple blood test to find out if you are a match.
For more information, visit TGH.org/Transplant.
