[Edaily Reporter Lee Soon-yong] Suncheonhyang University Hospital Cheonan (Director Lee Moon-su) announced that it successfully performed its first living-donor liver transplant surgery since the opening of the new hospital.
The recipient of the liver transplant is Ms. Lee, a woman in her 40s, who was diagnosed with alcoholic end-stage liver cirrhosis at Suncheonhyang University Hospital Cheonan last July. Her only treatment option was a liver transplant. Fortunately, her father stepped forward as a donor, and the hospital’s organ transplant center (Director Bae Sang-ho) successfully completed the living-donor liver transplant after a 12-hour major surgery on September 24.
The surgery was led by the surgical organ transplant team (Professors Bae Sang-ho, Kim Hye-young, Jeong Hae-il, Lee Hyun-yong, Kim Young-gil, and Seo Seung-hee), and the patient showed a rapid recovery and was discharged healthily on the 14th.
Professor Kim Hye-young, the attending physician, stated, “We were able to perform a successful surgery through continuous experience and know-how in the field of organ transplants,” adding, “The advanced critical care system implemented after the opening of the new hospital contributed to the patient’s quick recovery.”
As Professor Kim mentioned, this living-donor liver transplant is evaluated as a result of the advanced critical care medical system introduced in the new hospital. The Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), where transplant patients are admitted post-surgery, is designed with private rooms to provide intensive treatment facilities that aid in the quick treatment and recovery of patients.
Kim Jin-young, the director of the intensive care unit (Respiratory Medicine Department), explained, “The transplant patients have dedicated treatment rooms, and the structure is designed to allow the donor and recipient to look at each other through a window from their respective rooms, minimizing the risk of infection while providing an optimal treatment environment that offers emotional stability.”
In reality, the patient was able to receive intensive care in the ICU after surgery, with the donor being discharged healthily after 12 days and the recipient after 21 days. Bae Sang-ho, the head of the organ transplant center, said, “Living-donor liver transplantation requires collaboration between various departments, systematic systems, and medical environments,” adding, “We will do our best to improve survival rates and quality of life for transplant patients based on the advanced systems and medical capabilities of the new hospital.”
Meanwhile, Suncheonhyang University Hospital Cheonan has been granting new life with numerous organ transplant surgeries, starting with the region’s first kidney transplant in the 1990s. Since 2016, it has achieved outstanding results in the field of liver transplantation, leading the development of the regional organ transplant sector.