Become a Living Liver Donor

The number of people added to the national liver transplant waiting list grows each year. But the number of available livers from deceased donors stays about the same. As a result, people who need lifesaving liver transplant surgery to treat cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, and other conditions often face long wait times.

At the Liver Transplant Program, a part of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, our doctors perform living donor transplants to treat many kinds of liver disease. This approach creates shorter wait times and improved health for liver recipients.

Organ Donation by Living Liver Donors

For a living donor transplant, donors provide part of their healthy liver—up to 70 percent—to a recipient. The livers of both the donor and recipient regrow to full size approximately three months after the surgery.

There is no financial or medical benefit to donating a part of your liver, but helping another person live can be rewarding. We conduct an extensive evaluation process to minimize the risks to the donor, ensuring safety above everything else.

Any healthy individual can be a donor, not just immediate family members. Nondirected donation involves donating to a stranger. Another option is paired exchange, in which living liver donor and recipient pairs collaborate to find compatible livers for each recipient.

Benefits of Living Liver Donation

Some patients, such as those with liver cancer or certain blood types, may benefit more from a living donor liver transplant than they would from a transplant that came from a deceased donor.

In addition, when an organ is received from a deceased liver donor, surgery must occur on a rapid timeline. Living donation allows the liver recipient to prepare for surgery. The surgical date can be planned around your schedule, as well as the schedule of your medical team and the recipient.

Doctors can also schedule surgery at a time when the recipient is doing well medically. The healthier the recipient is before transplant, the better the outcome usually is. The goal is to perform liver transplant early in the disease process, before other organs and systems are affected. This allows for a safer procedure, speeds the recovery process, and improves surgical outcomes.

Living Liver Donor Consultation

All prospective donors complete a series of medical examinations and interviews with our staff to determine whether they are appropriate candidates for living liver donation. The consultation may include the following:

• blood tests to check for a compatible blood type and conditions such as fatty liver disease or hepatitis, which exclude candidates from donating
• imaging tests, such as X-rays and MRI or CT scans to ensure the liver has a portion large enough to donate and has a good blood supply
• an evaluation from a cardiologist that includes an electrocardiogram (EKG) to check the electrical activity of the heart and an echocardiogram, an imaging test to assess the heart valves and pumping action
• pulmonary function tests to check lung health
• a meeting with a social worker or psychologist to ensure the donor understands and is prepared for the process
• a discussion with a transplant surgeon and hepatologist about the procedure and recovery
• a meeting with an independent living donor advocate, who ensures that the liver donor’s interests are represented

When the living liver donor evaluation is complete, our transplant team meets with the prospective donor to discuss test results and candidacy. If the team agrees, the surgery is scheduled based around the donor’s and recipient’s schedules.

What to Expect from Living Donor Surgery

NYU Langone surgeons are experts at performing living liver donor surgery. This procedure consists of a partial hepatectomy—the surgical removal of a portion of the liver.

During liver donor transplantation, your doctor makes an incision across the abdomen to carefully remove a part of the liver, along with the gallbladder. The donor surgery takes about six to eight hours. The transplant team will stop the procedure if they think your liver is not suitable for the recipient.

After the surgery, you recover in a surgical intensive care unit (ICU) overnight and then are transferred to a regular hospital recovery room for about five days.

After returning home, you continue to see your NYU Langone doctors for regular follow-up appointments to ensure you are healing well. Most people are able to go back to their daily activities six to eight weeks after the procedure.

Contact Us

If you are interested in becoming a living liver donor, you can complete a confidential health screening for liver donations to begin the process.

To learn more about liver donation or to speak with a liver donor team specialist, call 212-263-8133 and then select option 4, or email LivingLiverDonorTeam@NYULangone.org.