The Liver!

My brother once promised to donate me his liver.

Turned out he was only kidneying me.... ;)


What is the Liver? Well the Liver is basically a filter, for toxins, chemicals, and poisons. All the bad stuff goes to your Liver and your Liver gets rid of them but, if you drink a LOT of alcohol or consume other harmful substances, the Liver will be overworked and get sick. This means you will need a new Liver.

The Liver is located in the right upper abdomen, and when doing a transplant you have to have a very large incision area and a large team. 

The first thing is you must remove is the old liver, and to do that you must remove all the attachments that hold the Liver in place. Then you proceed to divide all the blood vessels that are also holding the Liver in place, including the Bile Duct, the Bile Duct is a tube that delivers bile or poison as some like to say, to the Liver for it to get rid of. Once you remove all the parts connecting to the Liver, you will get ready to add the new Liver, you take the old Liver out and place the new healthy Liver in the same place the old was in, you then start to stitch together the Bile Duct, arteries and vessels to the new liver. Next, you pump warm blood and pour warm saline on the new Liver to warm it up to the same temp as the patient, you then review around the Live area to make sure there is no bleeding or anything forgotten. From there you then check the Liver to make sure it is working. Indications of a working Liver are bile being produced, and the Liver color changed from pale grey, when it was not attached to the patient, to pinkish-red color, a good indication it is working and blood is being pumped through it. You then close up the patient and  the Liver transplant is over, good job!


Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9TSMfvq4LY&has_verified=1 

Liver Transplant Surgery - UT Southwestern Medical Center

Performed by: Dr. Parsia Vagefi, Chief of Surgical Transplantation and Dr. Steven Hanish, Surgical Director of Liver Transplantation

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