Singapore doc to introduce live liver transplant in RP

A live liver transplant might soon be done for the first time in the Philippines, according to a surgeon from the Asian Center for Liver Diseases and Transplantation in Singapore.

Dr. Tan Kai Chah said he would be introducing in the Philippines this relatively new medical procedure, which has been practiced already in some countries such as the United States, Japan, Korea, and Singapore.

"We have a lot of doctors here in the Philippines but they are so much in focus with other fields. But this is more important as the procedure is life saving," Tan said as he explained that live liver transplant has saved people even with end-stage liver diseases.

He said he would be meeting with some local Filipino surgeons to discuss more on the procedure with the hope of making it available in the country.

Live liver transplantation is different to the most common method known as orthotopic liver transplantation.

Live liver transplantation involves a healthy person donating part of his or her liver to a sick recipient, who has a potentially reversible liver damage.

Orthotopic liver transplantation, on the other hand, is the removal of a failed liver from the patient's body and replacing it with the liver of a donor who has just died.

In a live liver transplantation, donors could be genetically related from the recipient or legally related, but Tan said the chances of success of a living donor transplant will depend so much on the condition of the recipient at the time of the operation.

Tan said the success rate of children patients has been noted at about 90 percent while that of adults is about 75 percent. This is because only a small part of the donor's liver will be taken for children recipients while adults need a bigger one, he said.

But patients with end-stage liver diseases should be referred immediately to a transplant center for proper assessment and optimization for the transplantation, said Tan.

"There is a need of an experienced surgeon to do the transplant because it is a very risky procedure," Tan added.

Normally, it will take a couple of months for a patient to fully recuperate from orthotopic transplant operation but, Tan said, it takes within three weeks for both liver from the donor and the recipient to recover and grow to about 90 percent.

Tan said a patient would take about a month to get back to a normal lifestyle while all donors will have a normal life after the operation. - Jasmin R. Uy