Liver transplantation is the surgical operation that is reserved for individuals with severe liver failure and by which a liver is irreparably damaged by another healthy one, coming from a compatible donor who has recently died or is still alive.
We talk about liver failure when a person's liver no longer performs its normal functions due to the damage it has suffered.
The main cause of liver failure is the so-called liver cirrhosis, that is the pathological process during which liver cells (hepatocytes) die and are replaced by scar / fibrous tissue.
To carry out the first deceased donor liver transplant was the medical team led by Dr. Thomas Starzl, in 1963. The intervention was held in the United States, specifically in Denver (Colorado).
After this first operation, Starzl carried out several other operations within a few years. However, it was not until 1967 that he succeeded in carrying out a liver transplant with a prognosis of more than one year. In all previous cases, in fact, patients had died after a few months.
According to various statistical data, until cyclosporine (1980s) was available, the survival rate of liver transplants one year after the operation was only about 25%.
Since the advent of the aforementioned drug - cyclosporine is an immunosuppressant used against the risk of rejection - and with the progress of surgery, the prognosis of liver transplants has progressively improved (this is for both adults and children).
As for the operations in which the donor is a living person, the first transplant performed in this way dates back to November 1989. It was performed by Dr. Christoph Broelsch, at the University Hospital of Chicago, in the United States. The protagonists were a woman (donor) and her daughter (recipient) of just two years.
In Italy, the first living procedure took place only in March 2001 and saw a 32-year-old man donate a portion of his liver to his father of 60, suffering from severe liver cirrhosis.
