Huge Success: Two Patients Saved with a Split Liver at Semmelweis University

Hungary Today 2024.01.12.

For the first time in Hungary, the Department of Surgery, Transplantation, and Gastroenterology of Semmelweis University performed a liver transplantation that saved the lives of two people – a young child and an adult man – by splitting a Hungarian donor organ. The patients have been doing well since the operation on December 2, reports Semmelweis.hu.

A three-year-old girl was placed on the emergency transplant list for liver failure of unknown origin and was treated at the Semmelweis University Pediatric Clinic. It is rare for such a small child to have a donor organ of suitable size, and the child’s serious condition required urgent intervention.

“Therefore, it is particularly gratifying that a Hungarian donor organ has just arrived through the Eurotransplant organ allocation system, which, when split in two, proved suitable for transplantation of the smaller part into the sick child and the larger part for a 35-year-old young man suffering from liver cancer,” said Dr. László Piros.

The associate professor at the Department of Surgery, Transplantation, and Gastroenterology (STéG) emphasized:

the peculiarity of the operation is that the organ was divided into a smaller and a larger piece – into two grafts – in the same place where the transplantation was carried out.”

Like all organ transplants, this one required a particularly organized team effort. The team from the Department of Surgery, Transplantation, and Gastroenterology at Semmelweis University traveled to the countryside to collect the donor organ. The organ reached the STéG through the Eurotransplant network via the Organ Coordination Office of the Hungarian National Blood Transfusion Service.

The young man was admitted to the ward shortly after the operation and was discharged after a two-week recovery. The little girl was transferred to the Pediatric Clinic for further observation and will soon be discharged to her home, noted Dr. Antal Dezsőfi-Gottl, Associate Professor and the child’s doctor.

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Another similar liver transplant was performed at Semmelweis University on January 3,

during which one organ also saved two lives: a 20-month-old boy suffering from a blocked hepatic vein, and an adult man infected with the Hepatitis B virus. The operations went well and the man is being treated at STéG and the child at the Pediatric Clinic.

Fact

The first organ transplants in Hungary were kidney transplants performed at the University of Szeged in 1963. Unfortunately, the operation was not very successful. After a break of almost 10 years, kidney transplants were performed in Miskolc (northern Hungary). Liver transplantation took quite a long time. The first such operation was performed at Semmelweis University in 1983, but it was unsuccessful. The first successful liver transplant was performed at the Department of Transplantation and Surgery at Semmelweis University in January 1995. In addition, the first heart transplant in Hungary was performed at Semmelweis University in 1992.

Today, kidney transplants are performed in four centers (Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen, Pécs), while liver and heart transplants are performed only in Budapest. Lung and pancreas transplants have not yet been performed in Hungary, but promising results have been reported.

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Via Semmelweis.hu, MTI; Featured image via Facebook/Semmelweis Egyetem