Doctors from the Hanoi-based Viet Duc Hospital announced they had successfully conducted their first liver transplants from a brain-dead donor for two patients.

According to Prof. Dr. Tran Binh Giang, director of Viet Duc Hospital, this is the first time in Vietnam where a liver has been successfully split and transplanted to two patients.

The donor was a 30-year-old man who died of a serious traumatic brain injury. The recipients were an eight-year-old child and a 49-year-old man.

Viet Duc Hospital subsidised part of the operation fees for the eight-year-old patient.

The liver transplant lasted for four hours, starting from 7:30 am on March 9.

With the approval from the donor’s relatives, the donor’s heart and kidney were also used to save three other people. While his blood vessels were taken for the Tissue Bank to save other patients.

All the patients have improved in the six days following the operations. The two receiving the liver can breathe by themselves and their livers are functioning normally.

Prof. Dr. Giang said splitting a liver between two patients was not common internationally.

Viet Duc Hospital first successfully carried out a liver transplant with a brain-dead donor on April 15, 2010.

Nguoi Lao Dong/Dtinews