A 50-year-old woman was saved after her brother donated part of his liver to her. The patient suffered from hepatitis for over three decades and had end-stage liver disease and transplantation was the only solution. The surgery was performed at “Timofei Mosneaga” National Clinical Hospital, IPN reports.
The younger brother aged 48 became her donor. After doing compatibility tests, he proved to be compatible with his sister and thus decided to help her. Both patients were discharged in over a month after surgery and are at the recovery stage, following strict protocols to ensure a favorable postoperative evolution.
“It is a happy day for us – a patient who underwent transplant a month ago was discharged. She had already been ill for 30 years, having end-stage liver cirrhosis. It’s clear that if we hadn’t performed the transplant, there would have been only one way – the wrong way. The brother was very altruistic, very kind and donated a part of his liver. These surgeries, from a living donor, are the most complicated ones because two human lives are at risk,” said the head of Surgery Department No. 2, professor Adrian Hotineanu.
The surgery, of major complexity, lasted for about 12 hours and was possible thanks to the coordinated involvement of the teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and staff of the General and Thoracic Surgery Intensive Care Unit and the Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery Department.
“The anesthesia process is very important because it includes not only sleep induction, but also very thorough monitoring of hemodynamics, lung functions. Surgeons have a lot of work to do. It’s a complicated operation. We have dozens of anesthesiologists who can ensure anesthesia for transplant surgery. This is done not by one anesthesiologist, but by two-three. And we already have two wards to provide post-operative care for liver transplant recipients,” said the head of the Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Clinic, professor Victor Cojocaru.
