1000th Successful Liver Transplant at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH)
On July 20th, our hospital celebrated its 1000th successful liver transplant at Seoul National University College of Medicine’s Alumni Hall. Staff members of the first Korean successful liver transplant in 1988 attended the event, including Soo-Tae Kim, Professor Emeritus Kuhn-Uk Lee, President & CEO of SNUH Hee-Won Jung, SNUH Department of Surgery’s Chair Sun-Whe KimKim Seon Hwe, and Professor Kyung-Suk Seo.
Our hospital’s liver transplant team achieved the 1000th liver transplant by transplanting the liver of a brain-dead patient to a 29-month old girl Kim Areum with biliary atresia. The operation was successful, and patient Kim Areum was discharged from the hospital on June 26th.
SNUH’s liver transplant team, from the first successful Korean liver transplantation in 1988 of a 14-year-old girl with hepatocirrhosis caused by Wilson’s disease, to the first Korean split liver transplantation of both 33-year-old patient with terminal liver disease and 2-year-old patient with biliary atresia, continued to innovate by conducting the world’s first adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation in 1999.
Our hospital has played a leading role in the country’s liver transplantation field by conducting the world’s first laparoscopic resection of the right lobe of the liver in 2007 and the country’s first liver transplantation with a donor in cardiac death in 2008.
SNUH achieved the 100th transplant in December of 2000, and the 500th in April of 2007. Since then, the numbers have continuously increased to achieve the 1000th transplant in June of this year.
Our hospital’s liver transplants have increased in both quantity and quality. Even in the most difficult type of liver transplantation, the adult-to-adult living-donor liver transplantation, our hospital has the best success rate in the world at 99 percent. In addition, the recipient of the first liver transplant in 1988 is currently healthy and continues to break the longest-living liver patient record in both Korea and Asia.