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Liver Transplants |
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A transplant offers the final hope for people with advanced liver disease.
When the liver fails, even today's advanced medical technology has very little to offer patients.
There is no balance for liver failure and treatment options are all too limited for patients and their liver function declines. So liver transplants truly are a life saver and every year just over 600 patients receive a donated liver.
But for every one person given a second chance at life with a liver transplant, 20 die from liver disease.
Tragically, each year about 100 people die while on the waiting list and many more will be too ill to undergo this major operation.
Transplant teams face the heart rending choice about which patients to put forward onto the transplant list.
Liver disease is the largest cause of death in the UK and the only killer on the rise. The liver, a major and complex organ almost the size of a rugby ball, performed more than 500 functions vital to life, yet surprisingly few of us give it much thought.
This is probably because early liver disease has few if any symptoms. Liver cells can regenerate and people can survive on only a small portion of functioning liver tissue.
However, scar tissue found in cirrhosis cannot repair itself.
Sadly, by the time many patients are diagnosed, it is too late to repair the damaged organ. This is why a new organ is such an important treatment option to help patients with severely damaged livers. A popular misconception is that anyone needing a liver transplant must have had an alcohol problem. This is not the case.
There are many reasons why a liver can fail, including autoimmune conditions where the body attacks itself, integrated genetic diseases such as haemochromatosis (and iron overload disorder) and Wilson's disease and a whole range of rare diseases, injuries from poisons or medications. The hepatitis be and c viruses on the rise in the UK, can be silent for many years but can eventually lead to liver damage.
Alcohol is the largest single cause of liver failure, usually due to regularly thinking to access over many years. Over a quarter of the population drink above government guidelines and it is difficult to predict which of these people will go on to develop liver disease. Too often a diagnosis comes too late for a patient to simply stop or cut back on their drinking to help their liver recover. Only a small minority of them offered a transplant, on evidence they can stay alcohol- free. | 
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