Mayo Clinic completes first paired liver donation for transplant

In late August, Ann Warpey rang the bell to signal her departure from the recovery unit at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after a liver transplant. Warpee received her liver as part of a unique combination of donors and recipients who are unable to donate an organ to a loved one who also needs a transplant.

Ann Werpey waited a year for a liver transplant, feeling sick and exhausted all the while, until a rare interaction in Minnesota saved her life.

Eagan's doctor wanted to donate her liver when Warpee needed one, but he wasn't right for her. But he matched with another transplant recipient, and that woman had a son. Her son's liver was the perfect size and blood type to be transplanted into Warpy to treat his worsening liver disease.

“I don't know them at all,” Warpey, 52, said of the two donors. “I'm really grateful. I'm really grateful. This is basically a second chance at life for me.”

This series of events marked the first time that a pair of living livers had been donated, either in Minnesota or at the Mayo Clinic. Both women with liver disease received transplants in August and their health has since improved, with an altruistic donor also returning to full strength after donating part of his liver. County Mayo announced the success of the paired donation on Tuesday in the hope of attracting more donations.

“In this country, the primary source of deceased liver transplants is deceased donation. That remains the case,” said Timsin Tanner, director of transplant surgery at Mayo University, who performed both surgeries to obtain the donor liver. the doctor said. “But hopefully we can do more living donor and pair exchanges in the future.”

More than 140 people in Minnesota are registered to receive a transplant to replace a failing or damaged liver, and half of them have been waiting more than six months, according to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. Last year, nine people in the state died before receiving transplants at Mayo University or the University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Living organ donation is made possible by donating one of your two kidneys or part of your liver, which filters the body's blood and plays an important role in digestion and metabolism, for transplant. Donors can donate 70% of their liver, and the liver will return to normal size in a few weeks.

“The liver is the only organ that can do that,” Tanner says.

Paired donations have helped reduce wait times for kidneys for 20 years. Kidneys can be transplanted up to 24 hours after they are collected from a donor. Transplant centers place patients on a registry so they can be matched with patients in other parts of the country.

Liver options, by comparison, are more limited and usually need to be transplanted within 12 hours. While most hospitals only create liver transplant pairs among local patients, the United Network for Organ Sharing is testing collaboration among 15 transplant centers in the United States.

Mayo had protocols in place for two years before the opportunity for paired liver donation presented itself.

A typical combination involves a liver exchange between two people who cannot donate an organ to a loved one who needs a transplant. By comparison, Mayo's first case was unusual, starting with Dr. Michael Broker in Eagan. He had already donated his kidney in 2022 and wanted to donate his liver to someone in need.

Broker, 53, was thrilled to learn that two transplants were made possible through his decisions. “I feel really blessed with good health, and I see others who aren't as lucky.” As he gradually recovered this fall, his doctor ordered him to return to running and planned to train for a half marathon this weekend in preparation for next spring's marathon.

“It's not faster than before, but it's not much slower either,” he quipped.

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