Dr. Egan donates liver in Mayo Clinic's first paired chain transplant

Rochester, Minn. (FOX 9) – In August, a patient on the operating table at the Mayo Clinic behaved in a surprising manner.

“I donated part of my liver to a stranger,” said Dr. Mike Broker. “That's not a common thing people do.”

In fact, Mr. Broeker may be one in a million. He is a family physician who has seen many of his patients suffer from kidney failure.

“One of my patients in particular needed a living donor a few years ago, and that got me thinking that maybe it's not possible now, but maybe someday it will be possible,” Dr. Broker says. spoke about the beginning of treatment. The journey to organ donation.

It happened sometime soon, when he donated one of his kidneys to someone he didn't know. This is the gift of life that made him what the organ donation community once called an altruistic donor. These people are now often referred to as indirect donors. This means that their life donation goes to those who need it most.

How it all started

Broker said he first learned about the possibility of becoming a living liver donor after seeing an article by Ted Gerding on FOX 9 in February 2022. Mr Gerding also donated one of his kidneys in a non-directive donation and said he felt very positive about the outcome. Looking to make an impact on another life, he also explored becoming a living liver donor.

His journey led him to Mayo Clinic's living donor liver transplant program, where he became a non-direct liver donor.

“That was the first time I actually became aware of the idea of ​​donating a living liver,'' Dr. Broker recalled after seeing the story.

structure

The liver is the only human organ with the ability to regenerate.

“You can split a liver in half from a donor,” said Dr. Timsyn Tanner, a liver transplant surgeon at the Mayo Clinic. “That half liver is given to the recipient. The recipient half immediately starts growing and becomes a full liver within about three to four weeks.”

Similarly, the donor's remaining liver regenerates within the same amount of time.

Dr. Tanner said living donor liver transplants were pioneered in Japan and Asia, where there are cultural barriers to harvesting organs after death. Although Western medicine has been much slower to adopt living liver donation, more transplant hospitals and programs are performing the procedure.

why is it important

Broeker's liver donation was part of Mayo Clinic's first paired liver donation chain. Paired exchanges are now very common in kidney transplants at Mayo and other transplant centers around the world. Pair exchange occurs when a family member is not the best fit to donate organs to a loved one, but may be a good match for someone else in need of a transplant.

“And despite that incompatibility, if they're a good donor, they can find another recipient that can use some of that liver, and a second one that may not be compatible with that recipient. recipient donor may actually donate to the first person,” Dr. Tanner said.

The end result of pair-matched donations is to create the potential for more transplants.

“Last year was a record year for liver transplants in the United States,” Dr. Tanner said. “We've done about 10,000 liver transplants, and about 600 of them were from living donors, so that's about 6%.”

At Mayo Clinic, about 10% of the 140 to 150 liver transplants performed each year are living liver donors.

After this surgery, the two recipients and the donor made a full recovery. Dr. Broker is training for a marathon and has also gotten back into running.

“I would do it again if I could,” Dr. Broker said.

Detailed information

Click here to learn more about Mayo University's living donor liver transplant program. here.

Click to become an organ donor here.