Surgeons at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta performed the world’s youngest domino liver transplant.
Domino liver transplants involve one patient with a metabolic disease receiving a donor liver while their native liver is transplanted into another patient with end-stage liver disease, but without metabolic disease. The liver in the non-metabolic disease donor functions normally due to the lack of genetic defect which causes the metabolic disorder.
In this procedure, a 2-year-old patient born with a rare metabolic genetic disorder underwent a liver transplant, according to an Oct. 6 hospital news release. The 2-year-old’s liver was then transplanted into a 1-year-old who suffered from a rare and potentially fatal liver disease. The entire procedure took nearly 24 hours to complete. Both patients will need to take anti-rejection and immunosuppressant medications, but are expected to live free of liver disease.
There have been about 185 domino liver transplants performed in the U.S. between 1996 and 2020.
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