When Was the First Liver Transplant?

Over the past 50 years, research continued from such pioneers as Dr. Thomas Starzl, along with the inclusion of more sophisticated anti-rejection medications, has made dramatic improvements in both liver and kidney transplantation. Although the procedure still requires patients to take certain precautions and medications over the remainder of their lives, recipients enjoy a longer survival rate and better quality of life.

Identification

• Early liver transplants were often performed on infants and children born with diseased or damaged livers. The first human to receive a liver transplant was a three-year-old boy named Bennie Solis. Solis was born with an underdeveloped liver and received the transplant on March 1, 1963, in Denver, Colorado. He died from uncontrolled bleeding during the operation. The operation was performed by Dr. Thomas Starzl. Starzl took a four-year hiatus to do research and resumed liver transplants in 1967 with a greater degree of success.

History

• Starzl had made a great deal of progress in the area of kidney transplantation and was one of the earliest surgeons to perform kidney transplants before turning his research toward the liver. Starzl and others focused on tissue matching, surgical techniques and anti-rejection drugs as a means to enable the coexistence of donor and host cells. Those same techniques and their advancement of chimerism soon opened the door for successful liver trials. Together, they contributed significantly to the overall dramatic increase in the survival rate of transplant patients.

Benefits

• Solis' transplant was considered a success despite his demise. In fact, the "survival rate," determined by physicians with regards to a transplant recipient, is limited only to the five-year period following the procedure. In the last 30 years, the survival rate for transplant patients has grown from 40 percent to a current estimate of 80 to 90 percent.

Medications

• A varying collection of anti-rejection, or immunosuppressant, drugs are conditional for the term of the recipient's life. The regular use of what proved to be a key anti-rejection drug, cyclosporine, during the late 1970s and early 1980s was perhaps the single most important contributor to suppressing the immune system's rejection of the new organ. Close monitoring by the patient's physician and a detailed tailoring of these drugs is necessary for the recipient's continued health for the term of her life.

Potential

• The first three days are the most critical during a patient's recovery following a liver transplant. In this time, the body's rejection or acceptance of the liver is determined. The week to follow the crucial days after the transplant have shown to bring about the possibility of infection, which hinders the recovery process of approximately half of all recipients. Biliary, vascular, re-operation and death are included among subsequent complications. This array of complications requires that all recipients receive close post-op monitoring throughout their lives.