Typically, a liver donor spends approximately seven days in the hospital, and will have an additional six to eight weeks of recovery time. Donors who are from out of town (greater than a two-hour drive) should plan on spending an extra two to three weeks in town after they are discharged from the hospital.
Unfortunately, you will have significant pain after surgery. We will give you pain medication but you will still be very uncomfortable for at least the first week. You will have less pain as each day goes by, but most of our donors have a significant amount of discomfort for two to four weeks after surgery.
Some risks of living-donor liver transplant may include: Bile leakage — this occurs in a small subset of living-liver donors and most often resolves itself. Doctors can also aid the healing process by placing a tube in the liver. Infection — some living-liver donors may get an infection at the site of surgery.
Recovery from Living Liver Donation. Liver donors do not typically experience any serious long-term complications, in part because the liver is unique among the body's organs in its ability to regenerate. After giving part of one's liver, it will eventually return to close to its original size.
As much as a person without liver transplant meaning the general population. Now you know that living liver donation has no impact on how long and healthy you will live.
Typical liver donors are able to return to an independent life of showering, getting dressed, and doing other simple daily activities when they arrive home after discharge. This is usually one week after surgery.
A transplanted liver may be more sensitive to damage by chemicals, including alcohol. The transplantation team recommends that recipients avoid overuse of alcoholic beverages after transplantation.
Rejection happens in up to 30 in 100 patients. The risk of rejection is highest in the first 6 months after a transplant. After this time, your body's immune system is less likely to recognise the liver as coming from another person. Chronic rejection happens in 2 in 100 patients.
Liver transplant recipients are prone to weight gain and metabolic syndrome. This is due to several reasons such as improvement in diet, immunosuppression and reduced stress with improvement of the catabolic state.
Avoid alcohol
If your liver transplant was due to an alcohol-related disease, you must never drink alcohol again as you risk harming your transplanted liver. This also applies if alcohol was thought to have contributed to your liver disease, even if it was not the main cause.
In preparation for liver donation, you may need to make some modifications to your lifestyle. These changes include avoiding recreational drugs, tobacco and alcohol. You cannot drink alcohol for a full year after surgery to allow your liver to recover. You will also be required to visit the hospital and lab repeatedly.
You don't have to have the exact blood type as the person who needs a new liver, but you need to be what's called "compatible." This can be figured out with a simple blood test.
Graft failure
It's one of the most serious complications of a liver transplant and occurs in around 1 in every 10 people. The most common cause is a disruption to the blood supply to the transplanted liver, caused by blood clots (thrombosis). Graft failure can develop suddenly, or slowly over a longer period of time.
How Long Is Living-Donor Liver Surgery? The entire liver donor operation will take five to seven hours.
A person can donate a portion of his or her liver – up to 60 percent of it – to be transplanted into another person.
Recovering from a liver transplant can be a long process, but most people will eventually be able to return to most of their normal activities and have a good quality of life. It can take up to a year to fully recover, although you'll usually be able to start gradually building up your activities after a few weeks.
Once activated on the liver transplant wait list, most patients are removed for 1 of 3 reasons: transplanta- tion, death, or change in clinical status.
Liver transplant survival rates
In general, about 75% of people who undergo liver transplant live for at least five years. That means that for every 100 people who receive a liver transplant for any reason, about 75 will live for five years and 25 will die within five years.
Traditionally, being liver transplant candidate requires “six months of abstinence” from alcohol. However, the so-called “six-month rule” may not save some of life especially in severe ALHep patients.
This informal policy, often called "the 6-month rule," can be traced to the 1980s. The thinking was that six months of abstinence gave a patient's liver time to heal and, thus, avoid a transplant. If that didn't work, the patient would have proven they can stay sober and would not return to drinking after a transplant.
The longest surviving heart, lung and liver transplant patient is Mark Dolby (UK, b. 19 February 1961), who received a triple transplant on 21 August 1987 at Harefield Hospital, Greater London, UK.
Livers from female donors yielded significantly poorer results, with 2-year graft survival of female to male 55% (95% CI, 45% to 67%); female to female, 64% (95% CI, 54% to 77%); male to male, 72% (95% CI, 66% to 78%); and male to female, 78% (95% CI, 70% to 88%).
A study cohort of 251 liver transplantation (LT) recipients were followed up for 20 years. The actual 20-year patient survival rate was 62.6% in 207 adult living donor LT recipients, 68.2% in 22 adult deceased donor LT recipients, and 77.3% in 22 pediatric LT recipients.
One-year graft survival was 73.1% (donor ≥65–69) and 62.5% (donor ≥ 70), while multivariate analysis revealed superior one-year graft survival to be associated with a donor age of ≥65–69.