Live Donor Liver Transplant

Live donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is a procedure in which a living person donates a portion of his or her liver to another. The feasibility of LDLT was first demonstrated in the United States in 1989. The recipient was a child, who received a segment of his mother's liver. Since that time, LDLT for children has enjoyed wide success and many pediatric programs use this technique.

In the pediatric experience, survival of both the recipient and the transplanted liver (graft) at 1 year is about 90%. Donor complications have been very few. A rising population of adult patients awaiting liver transplantation has led to the application of LDLT for adult patients, and the preliminary results have been very encouraging. Only a handful of centers in this country perform the procedure.
The transplant team from USC has been performing LDLT at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) for some time with excellent results. This USC team also performed the first adult-to-adult LDLT in Southern California, and the world's first adult-to-adult LDLT without blood transfusion. Encouraged by these results, we now offer this option as standard treatment in adults who have suitable donors.

The following pages (see PATIENT INFORMATION) provide information about the USC Liver Transplant Team. They also answer the following questions:

What constitutes a good donor?
What is the process for evaluating and selecting a donor?
Where does the transplant occur?
When does the transplant occur?
How is the operation performed?
What is the postoperative period like for the donor?

The information presented in a question and answer format is intended to address all the usual questions that arise when considering this option.

« Back to Clinical Activities