South Africa advances liver transplants with new techniques
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Surgeons at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre in South Africa recently completed 1,000 liver transplants since starting their program in 2004, building on decades of transplant experience that began with the country’s first heart transplant in the 1960s.
The University of Cape Town initially led liver transplantation in the country during the 1980s, establishing a deceased donor program.
When the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre began its own unit around 2004, it expanded the possibilities for liver transplants by performing split liver transplants, dividing a single liver between an adult and a child, and transplants across blood type barriers. The centre pioneered transplants for patients experiencing acute liver failure and has recently adopted machine perfusion technology. This technology revives and preserves donor livers for longer periods, allowing the hospital to use livers previously considered unusable.
Donald Gordon is currently the only medical centre in Africa utilizing machine perfusion as a standard practice. Despite these advancements, the availability of deceased donor organs remains a primary challenge. The hospital currently performs around 50 to 60 liver transplants annually, but could potentially double that number with increased organ availability.
More than 4,000 people in South Africa currently await organ transplants, and Jerome Loveland of the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre urges citizens to consider becoming organ donors, as a single donor can save up to seven lives.
