PITTSBURGH, Pa., Dec. 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - ISMETT, a leading Italian transplant center managed by UPMC, has performed its 100th adult living-donor liver transplant. The patient, a Sicilian woman from Catania, received part of her husband's liver in October and was discharged home earlier this month.
"Being able to alleviate my wife's pain was a great gift," said her husband, who went home only 10 days after the transplant. "It is important that other people going through the same ordeal know that this possibility exists."
The first living-donor liver transplant at Palermo-based ISMETT was performed in 2002. In addition to the 100 living-donor liver transplants in adult patients, 15 have been done in children.
In Italy, living-donor liver transplantation is regulated by the National Transplantation Center, which authorizes this surgery only for centers with transplant survival rates in line with the best European centers.
"For patients with end-stage organ disease, transplantation is the only possibility to survive and significantly improve their quality of life," said Salvo Gruttadauria, M.D., head of the living-donor liver transplantation program at ISMETT. "A living-donor transplant is an alternative therapeutic option when the patient's health conditions do not allow further wait on the transplant list."
Living-donor liver transplants are possible because of the liver's ability to regenerate. It can be split in two and, several weeks after surgery, returns to its normal size, both in the donor and recipient.
More than 15,000 people worldwide are waiting for liver transplants. Living-donor liver transplant offers significant life-saving benefits, including little or no wait time; quicker recovery time; and improved long-term outcomes.
UPMC, which manages ISMETT, is a leader in living-donor liver transplants, having performed 273 adult and 120 pediatric living-donor liver transplants since 1997. UPMC's liver transplantation program of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute is internationally recognized for its far-reaching influence in the field of transplantation, and its surgeons have performed more than 6,000 adult liver transplants since the program's inception in 1981.
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