A one-year-old girl and a
sixteen-year-old boy were both the recipients of a liver
transplanted from the same donor.
The complex surgery, splitting the organ in two, was
successfully carried out at Rome's Bambino Gesù Pediatric
Hospital.
Both patients were in critical condition and in need of a
transplant and confronted with the decision of choosing one of
the two once the liver became available, the doctors decided to
perform the surgery on both.
"It was a risky choice forced upon us by the seriousness of
the situation with both patients in critical conditions
competing for the same transplant. They are both well now and
they will probably leave the pediatric hospital in the next few
days" said doctor Jean de Ville, director of the hospital's
surgical department.
The double liver transplant represented both a risk and an
opportunity.
"It's rare to be able to use the same organ, at the same
time, for two children, giving both the opportunity to recover
and live a full life".
Usually when a donor-organ comes on the transplant-radar
priority is given to the patient in the worse clinical
condition, but in this case, the two children were both in a
critical situation. "Luckily - added de Ville - their difference
in age and weight allowed us to use the same liver for both and
we proceeded with the transplant from the deceased donor".
The division of a liver for transplant use for two
different patients is a consolidated technique in Italy, where
the practice has been widely employed.
"The most common path in these cases is to use the right
side of the liver for an adult patient and the left side (the
smaller one) for a child" de Ville explained.
Seventeen liver transplants have been carried out at the
Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital since the beginning of the year,
ten of which from a living donor, the highest number ever
recorded in Italy.
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