Summary: Traditionally, a liver used for transplant came from a deceased donor. Now, a handful of hospitals in the United States have the ability to do what’s called a “living donor” liver transplant. It’s a very complex procedure where a piece of the donor’s liver is put into the recipient. After a short time, the segments in the donor and the recipient naturally increase in size and serve as two functional livers. It is a way to provide patients with a liver before they get really sick. To learn more about this procedure, we asked Dr. <a href="http://healthcare.utah.edu/fad/mddetail.php?physicianID=u0731930">Robin Kim</a>, executive medical director of transplants at <a href="http://healthcare.utah.edu/transplant">University of Utah Healthcare</a>, about how it’s done, what makes it complicated and how safe it is for the donor.
