Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital

The first liver transplantation was successfully completed by Dr. Jang Yong Jeon at Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital on December 10, 2010. A 50-year-old man who had been suffering from hepatitis B, hepatocirrhosis, and hepatic coma survived the medical ordeal.

Wan-Jae Jeon was transferred from the other hospital last month when his symptoms on hepatitis B, hepatocirrhosis got suddenly worse, and showed ascites and jaundice. As his hepatic coma grew much worse, he was moved to the intensive care unit of Hallym, where he was strongly recommended to have a liver plantation.

Unfortunately, all his family members including his son, sister and brother turned out to be inappropriate living donors who are hepatitis type B carriers. The transplantation team, led by Dr. Jeon immediately put him on a waiting list of the Korean Network for Organ Sharing (KONOS).

The medical crew expected that they could not easily find a suitable donor, but fortunately enough, a male, who was pronounced with brain death by cerebral hemorrhage, and his family decided to donate his organs to Jeon. The transplantation started at 7 PM right after the donor’s liver reached the hospital, and ended at 2 AM on the next morning.

After the surgery, the patient regained consciousness, and kept showing a normal blood pressure and pulse. The operation team has been carefully observing to stave off any emergency.

“With the high possibility of cerebral edema accompanying hepatic coma, we had him take a Brain-CT early in the morning on that day,” Dr. Jeon said. “This is the first liver transplantation at the hospital since its opening in 1999, but we haven’t faced any difficulties as we already had performed several operations at the Transplantation Center, Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital,” he added.

By Sung-won Lee, Int’l Operations Team, HUMC (sungwon@hallym.or.kr)