A team at Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine has performed a successful liver transplant in a patient with terminal colorectal cancer.
The procedure was made possible through Northwestern’s new Colorectal Metastasis to Liver Extraction with Auxiliary Transplant and Delayed Resection program, or CLEAR, according to a March 18 news release from the health system.
To make the procedure possible, the liver of a deceased donor was split into two parts. The larger portion was transplanted into a 57-year old woman with severe liver scarring. The smaller portion was transplanted into a 53-year-old man with stage 4 colorectal cancer that had spread to his liver. Part of the cancerous liver was removed during the initial implantation; the remaining part was removed weeks later after the healthy liver had grown.
This surgical technique is known as resection and partial liver transplantation with delayed total hepatectomy, or RAPID, the release said. The Northwestern team performed the procedures in October and November.
The patient’s cancer was initially treated with chemotherapy, a colon resection and liver ablations. Since the transplant, there have been no signs of cancer and the patient does not require further cancer therapy.
