A Milestone In Organ Transplant

In Malaysia, livers for transplant are commonly harvested from cadavers. It is the dawning of a new milestone when University of Malaya successfully establishes a living liver donor transplant unit.

- Pank Jit Sin

A multispecialty team of healthcare professionals in University of Malaya (UM) has successfully carried out their first living donor liver transplantation last year and since then performed three living donor liver transplants over the past year.

According to Associate Professor Yoong Boon Koon, of the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UM, the liver transplant unit in UM is composed of members from many fields, with every member being passionate and dedicated to the cause.

“As you can see, we have a team of surgeons, anaesthesiologist, hepatologists, intensivists, pathologists, psychiatrist, nurses and more.” Yoong, a hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeon, was speaking at a multidisciplinary meeting involving members of the newly established liver transplant unit in University Malaya Medical Centre. He said: “We just did our third case 6 weeks ago and she is doing well. We are looking at six this year and further upscaling the number to 12 next year.” The team has no doubts as to the uptake of the service—the only question is how many the infrastructure can support.

While the adult living donor liver transplant unit is relatively new, Yoong said it was important to note that a paediatric living donor transplant unit has been in existence for much longer. It is hoped that, with the availability of an adult living donor liver transplant programme in place, the number of end-stage liver disease patients who can be treated will increase exponentially.

According to Yoong, the living donor transplant effort is meant to bring more awareness to the public and to healthcare professionals about the importance of organ donation. Unlike cadaveric donor transplantation, in living donor transplantation, two persons must undergo surgery and this means risking a healthy donor.