Five liver transplants were successfully performed this week.

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - In just one week, doctors at Military Central Hospital 108 successfully performed 5 liver transplants from living donors, saving the lives of patients with acute liver failure and liver cancer.

On August 30th, the Central Military Hospital 108 announced that in the last week of the month, doctors had saved five lives thanks to five liver transplants from living donors. All patients were suffering from acute liver failure or liver cancer, and their only chance of survival was a liver transplant.

Doctors simultaneously performed five liver transplants in one week, including planned transplants, emergency transplants, and transplants from living donors.

In one week, doctors performed 5 liver transplants, saving 5 lives (Photo: Provided by the hospital).

A typical example is the case of a male patient in Bac Ninh with acute liver failure, whose 19-year-old son donated his liver to save his father.

The male patient reported that for about two weeks, he had been feeling tired, had a poor appetite, his jaundice had progressively worsened, and he experienced dull abdominal pain.

He was then diagnosed with acute liver failure on the background of chronic hepatitis B, and received medical treatment at a lower-level hospital for 4 days without improvement.

The patient was transferred to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases for treatment on August 13th; however, the patient's condition worsened, and they fell into a hepatic coma and were intubated on August 21st. The patient was then transferred to the Central Military Hospital 108.

Mr. NHN shared that his father's condition was very serious. The doctor informed them that patients in a hepatic coma only have 72 hours for a liver transplant, and since his father had been in a coma for more than a day, the family decided to donate his liver to him.

When tests were conducted, only his mother and Mr. N. were compatible, but he himself did not want his mother to donate her liver, as she had only given birth to a baby more than two months ago. Mr. N. decided to donate a portion of his liver to his father instead.

On August 24th, doctors successfully performed a liver transplant on the patient, using a liver donated by his son.

In another case, a 60-year-old male patient in Ninh Binh was diagnosed with recurrent multifocal hepatocellular carcinoma two years after surgery. During a routine health check-up, the patient was found to have recurrent liver tumors despite not having a fever, abdominal pain, jaundice, or bowel dysfunction.

Lieutenant Colonel, Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Van Quang, Deputy Head of the Department of Liver, Gallbladder, and Pancreatic Surgery, Central Military Hospital 108, said that with the recurrence of the disease, the patient was advised to undergo a liver transplant.

Although liver transplantation in patients who have previously undergone hepatectomy is often more complex and difficult due to adhesions from the previous surgery, and because the left biliary tract and blood vessels have already been resected, making reconstruction and anastomosis particularly challenging, without transplantation, the patient will have little chance of survival.

Associate Professor Quang stated that in the liver transplant cases this past week, doctors used laparoscopic surgery to harvest liver tissue from donors for transplantation into recipients.

This is considered one of the most complex surgical techniques performed using laparoscopic surgery, requiring a high level of expertise, modern equipment, and a comprehensive system of machinery.

This method offers several benefits for liver donors, such as: minimally invasive intervention resulting in better post-operative pain relief compared to open surgery, faster recovery time, and superior aesthetics while achieving results comparable to open surgery.

Since the first laparoscopic graft harvesting surgery in Vietnam was performed at Military Central Hospital 108 in November 2021, the hospital has successfully performed over 90 laparoscopic graft harvesting surgeries.

Globally , only a few Liver and Biliary Centers in countries with advanced medical systems such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea are capable of performing laparoscopic liver grafting from living donors.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/suc-khoe/mot-tuan-5-ca-ghep-gan-duoc-thuc-hien-thanh-cong-20250831000908359.htm