Spain: A first: living liver donor laparoscopy

[Clark]

http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp?Berri_Kod=4945&hizk=I#.UxK20JK9KSM

For the first time in Spain, a portion of liver is extracted from a living donor using laparoscopy
Jesús Zorrilla Ruiz

The Hepato-bilio-pancreatic Surgery and Transplants Team at the University Hospital of Navarra has extirpated the right lobule of the liver from a living donor using laparoscopy, so that it could be subsequently transplanted into his brother, who had suffered from terminal hepatic disease. This is the second case of extirpation of a section of liver from a living donor undertaken with laparoscopy at the University Hospital of Navarra. To date this advance has been used in very few hospitals throughout the world. In concrete, two hospitals have applied this procedure for extracting the left lobule of the liver (the University Hospital of Ghent and the New York Presbyterian Hospital) and only one for the right lobule (the Hôpital St Antoine in Paris). In Spain, the University Hospital of Navarra is the only one to date that has carried out this laparoscopic procedure.
The use of the laparoscopic technique in this intervention is aimed at reducing the risk for the donor, as well as minimizing surgical aggression and improving the post-operative stage. “Our prime aim is the safety of the donor”, state doctors Fernando Rotellar and Fernando Pardo, surgeons at the University Hospital of Navarra, and who have led both laparoscopic interventions. According to doctor Pardo, “liver transplant is currently the only curative option for the various terminal-stage hepatic diseases. Demand for liver donors is much greater than the supply, a situation which has spurred specialists to develop liver transplant from a live donor as an alternative source of transplantable organ”.

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