Asan Medical Center Achieves Milestone of 9,000 Liver Transplantations, Including 7,502 Living Donors and 1,498 Deceased Donors

 

Despite the High Complexity, Success Rate Reaches 98%, Stands as the World’s Best

 

“Countless Medical Professionals Unite to Ensure Long-Term Survival and Enhance the Quality of Life for Patients”

 

▲Two living donor liver transplantations were performed simultaneously in four operating rooms at Asan Medical Center on April 30. With the successful completion of its 8,999th and 9,000th liver transplantations, the liver transplantation team reached the milestone of 9,000 cases.

 

At 8 a.m. on April 30, four liver transplantation operating rooms at Asan Medical Center were opened simultaneously. Two living donor liver transplantations were performed at the same time, where part of a healthy person’s liver is transplanted into a patient. One case involved an aunt suffering from liver cancer and cirrhosis, with her nephew donating a portion of his healthy liver. The other case involved an aunt whose life was at risk due to alcoholic liver cirrhosis, with her nephew donating part of his own liver to save her. As the four individuals entered their respective operating rooms, the liver transplantation medical teams quickly set to work. In the donors’ rooms, removal surgery of the liver began, while in the recipients’ rooms, preparations were underway to transplant the healthy liver. Finally, as the healthy livers were transplanted into the recipients, the grayish livers regained reddish vitality. This was the moment when Asan Medical Center successfully performed its 8,999th and 9,000th liver transplantations consecutively.

 

Over the past 30 years, the relentless efforts of Korean medical teams to save patients with life-threatening end-stage liver disease have written a new chapter in history by achieving the world’s first 9,000 liver transplantations. Through 9,000 life-and-death challenges, a terminally ill baby has grown into a healthy young adult, and a father in his forties who once awaited death has lived to experience the joy of welcoming grandchildren. Countless lives have blossomed like miracles.

 

The liver transplantation team at the Organ Transplantation Center of Asan Medical Center recently announced that on Wednesday, April 30, they successfully performed a living donor liver transplantation on Ms. Yoon (43), who had been suffering from alcoholic liver cirrhosis, using a portion of her 20-year-old nephew Mr. Jung’s liver, achieving the world’s first milestone of 9,000 cases in liver transplantation as a single medical institution.

 

This achievement comes 32 years and 8 months after Asan Medical Center first performed a deceased donor liver transplantation in August 1992, and just two and a half years after reaching the 8,000 case marks in September 2022.

 

Since beginning deceased donor liver transplantations in 1992, Asan Medical Center has performed 7,502 living donor liver transplantations and 1,498 deceased donor liver transplantations to date.

 

At Asan Medical Center, 85% of liver transplantations are living donor procedures. Compared to liver transplantations from deceased donors, living donor liver transplantation is known to be more complex and carries a higher risk of complications. Despite the challenges and the high-risk nature of many procedures, Asan Medical Center boasts world-leading survival rates, with a 1-year survival rate of 98%, a 3-year survival rate of 90%, and a 10-year survival rate of 89%.

 

The 9,000th liver transplantation was also a living donor procedure. However, this particular surgery carried a higher risk of rejection because the donor and recipient had incompatible blood types. The liver transplantation team at Asan Medical Center, drawing on its extensive experience as the world’s leading center in performing blood type incompatible liver transplantation, administered antibody-suppressing medication prior to surgery and carried out plasma exchange (a procedure that removes disease-causing antibodies from the plasma before returning the blood to the patient) to ensure patient safety and the success of the operation.

 

What is particularly noteworthy is that the 9,000th and 8,999th liver transplantations were performed simultaneously. Both were living donor liver transplantations, requiring liver resection from each donor and transplantation into each recipient, which led to open four operating rooms in total. It is extremely rare worldwide for multiple living donor liver transplantations to be carried out at the same time within a single medical institution. This demonstrates not only the high level of expertise of each member of the transplant team, who are capable of independently performing complex surgeries, but also the presence of a well-established surgical system to support such operations.

 

The liver transplantation team of Asan Medical Center has continuously worked to save more patients and has introduced groundbreaking surgical techniques to the global liver transplantation community.

 

The modified right lobe liver transplantation, developed in 1998 by Endowed-Chair Professor Sung-Gyu Lee of the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Asan Medical Center is now used as a standard procedure at liver transplantation centers around the world. This technique involves creating a new middle hepatic vein in the transplanted right lobe, ensuring proper venous drainage from the entire lobe. Thanks to this innovation, the annual number of living donor liver transplantation cases jumped from 30 to over 100, with the success rate increasing from 70% to over 95%.

 

The two-to-one living donor liver transplantation, first devised by Endowed-Chair Professor Sung-Gyu Lee in 2000, holds significant importance as it expanded the pool of both donors and recipients in liver transplantation. By transplanting portions of the liver from two donors into a single recipient, the procedure makes transplantation possible even when the right-to-left liver lobe ratio of the donor’s liver does not meet standard criteria or when there is significant fatty liver disease. To date, more than 650 patients have received a new lease on life through this innovative technique.

 

Asan Medical Center has also performed the highest number of ABO-incompatible living donor liver transplantations in the world, with a total of 1,126 cases, achieving outcomes comparable to those of blood type-compatible liver transplantations.

 

Asan Medical Center has also continued its efforts to ensure the safety of liver donors. Donor hepatectomies using laparoscopic and minimally invasive techniques have shortened recovery times and minimized scarring that significantly improve donors’ quality of life. Notably, there have been no cases of death or serious complications among living liver donors.

 

Asan Medical Center has continued to help Asian countries to establish self-sufficiency in liver transplantation. Since 2011, Asan Medical Center has been training teams in Mongolia and Vietnam, leading to significant progress. As a result, the First Central Hospital of Mongolia, along with Cho Ray Hospital and the University Medical Center of Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam, are now capable of independently performing liver transplantations. In particular, the First Central Hospital of Mongolia reached a milestone of 300 cumulative living donor liver transplantations in February of this year, achieving full self-sufficiency in liver transplantation.

 

In addition, Asan Medical Center has successfully performed several landmark liver transplantations, including Turkey’s first adult living donor liver transplantation in 2001, Europe’s and France’s first two-to-one living donor liver transplantations in 2004, Turkey’s first two-to-one living donor liver transplantation in 2006, Qatar’s first adult living donor liver transplantation in 2016, and Kazakhstan’s first two-to-one living donor liver transplantation in 2019.

Medical training for liver transplantation is expected to continue for medical professionals from the United States for more than a decade. The University of Minnesota Medical Center, which had shared medical expertise with South Korean doctors in 1955 to help rebuild the healthcare system of South Korea, reached out in 2015 seeking to collaborate with Asan Medical Center on living donor liver transplantation. Since then, collaboration in liver transplantation has steadily continued, and with the extension of the MOU in April, the partnership with the United States is set to continue for years to come.

 

Endowed-Chair Professor Sung-Gyu Lee of the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Asan Medical Center, stated: “The driving force behind Asan Medical Center’s ability to give the gift of life to nearly 9,000 patients with end-stage liver disease has been our patients themselves. Not only the lead surgeons in the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery, but also medical staff from the Departments of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Department of Radiology, the Division of Gastroenterology, the Operating Room, Intensive Care Unit, inpatient wards, and the Organ Transplantation Center have worked together to ensure long-term survival and improve the quality of life for our patients.”

 

▲The liver transplantation team of Asan Medical Center is taking a commemorative photo of achieving the world’s first 9,000 cases of liver transplantation on May 7.