Partial or whole liver transplant

Improvement in outcomes in the 1980s led to increased acceptance and widening of indications for liver transplantation across the western world.
The demand for organs persistently exceeded the supply of organs leading to death of patients while waiting for an organ.
Advances in liver surgery by the late 1980s made it possible to divide the liver into functionally independent viable parts along specific planes. This sowed the seed of partial grafting. Almost concurrently this concept was applied to splitting whole livers from deceased donors either in vivo or ex vivo and to living donors. European surgeons who had access to deceased organs could split organs to benefit two patients usually an adult and a child . In Asia, partial grafts from
Living donors were used initially in children and subsequently into adults as well. In US and Europe progress in splitting also was extended to doing a full right-left split of the deceased donor liver.
There is no doubt that a whole liver graft is the gold standard for adult liver recipients. Partial grafts from deceased and split donors have been used over three decades and in almost all situations with equivalent results. As long as liver cell quality is good,hepatocyte mass is adequate and ischemia time is kept low, partial liver transplant in an experienced center provides results equivalent to whole liver transplant .