Imaging tests, such as an ultrasound of your liver. Heart tests to determine the health of your cardiovascular system. A general health exam, including routine cancer screening tests, to evaluate your overall health and to check for any other illnesses that may impact the success of your transplant.
There is pain after liver transplant surgery, however it is generally not as severe as with other abdominal surgeries. This is because nerves are severed during the initial abdominal incision causing numbness of the skin around the abdomen. These nerves regenerate over the following six months and sensation returns.
As you wait for surgery, you will meet regularly with doctors and other members of your transplant team to assess any progression of your liver disease and provide you with the resources you need to stay healthy.
Help at Home After Liver Transplant Surgery
You must have a caregiver with you 24 hours a day for at least 6 weeks after you leave the hospital. Being a caregiver is a big responsibility. You may need more than one person to help you for the first few months after your liver transplant.
The waiting period for a deceased donor transplant can range from less than 30 days to more than 5 years. How long you will wait depends on how badly you need a new liver.
Maintain general health through proper nutrition, rest, exercise, and stress reduction. Avoid people who have infectious diseases especially people with active viral infections, such as chicken pox, mumps, measles, mononucleosis, tuberculosis, colds, or the flu. Take medications to prevent infection, as prescribed.
Very common longer-term risks
The most common infections are chest or urine infections. These are usually fairly straightforward to treat with antibiotic tablets. Infections inside the liver transplant itself can be harder to treat.
Eating lean meats, poultry and fish. Eating whole-grain breads and cereals and other grains. Having enough fiber in your daily diet. Drinking low-fat milk or eating other low-fat dairy products, to help maintain enough calcium.
The operation time varies depending on complexity of the procedure. It is often between 5-8 hours. After you have been put to sleep under anaesthetic, the surgery will begin. Your damaged liver will be removed and the donor liver will be transplanted into its place.
In summary, the leading causes of late deaths after transplant were graft failure, malignancy, cardiovascular disease and renal failure. Older age, diabetes, and renal insufficiency identified patients at highest risk of poor survival overall.
You will be kept on a breathing machine (ventilator) for a day or so and will be followed very closely by the staff there. The average length of stay in the ICU is two days, after which you will be transferred to the medical floor/ transplant unit.
People needing liver or heart transplants often need to wait nine or more months. Recipients are assessed for compatibility to the donor (not just blood type, but for six different tissue antigen subtypes as well as general body size – e.g. putting an adult heart into a small child is not possible).
Some people may not be suitable for a liver transplant. Some reasons a person may not qualify include: They have other untreatable conditions affecting other organs, such as cancer or severe coronary artery disease.
Rejection happens in up to 30 in 100 patients. The risk of rejection is highest in the first 6 months after a transplant. After this time, your body's immune system is less likely to recognise the liver as coming from another person. Chronic rejection happens in 2 in 100 patients.
Recovering from a liver transplant can be a long process, but most people will eventually be able to return to most of their normal activities and have a good quality of life. It can take up to a year to fully recover, although you'll usually be able to start gradually building up your activities after a few weeks.
Liver failure
There is a risk that your remaining liver doesn't work after your operation. This is a rare but serious complication and can be life threatening.
After a liver transplant, most people are in the hospital for about seven to 10 days. You will start taking anti-rejection medications immediately after surgery.
Embedded Player Many transplant centers require people with alcohol-related liver disease to remain sober for half a year, before becoming eligible for the waiting list for a liver.
Advancing age, sarcopenia, acute on chronic liver failure, and non-liver-related medical co-morbidities are common conditions that arise while on the wait-list that can render a patient too sick for transplant.
The chance to be transplanted at two years from listing was 65% and the risk of death was 17%. Patients with metabolic liver disease had the highest chance of undergoing liver transplantation.
Many may live for up to 20 years or more after the transplant. A study says 90% of people with transplant survive for at least 1 year, and 70% of people may live for at least 5 years after transplant.
Most people live more than 10 years after a liver transplant and many live for up to 20 years or more.
Yes. Visits in the ICU are limited, but once you're moved to the Transplant Unit, you can have visitors around the clock.