[Living related liver transplantation]

Liver transplantation has become established as a standard procedure in the treatment of end-stage liver diseases. Despite intense efforts by all parties involved up to the amendment of the German Transplantation Act, the lack of suitable donor organs was still one of the limiting factors of this therapeutic procedure. One way out of this problem is to make so-called marginal organs usable, e.g. with the help of machine perfusion or by utilizing living liver donation, which are used in some countries for more than 90% of organ donations. In general, there is no difference in the indications for liver transplantation between a (partial) organ obtained by post-mortem or living donation. Before any living donation, a thorough evaluation of the donor is carried out in order to minimize postoperative morbidity as far as possible. Technically the partial liver donation is based on the oncological liver resection, while the partial liver transplantation is a further development of split liver transplantation after post-mortem liver donation. In specialized centers comparable or even better results can nowadays be achieved using living liver donation instead of post-mortem donation.