SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Seoul National University Hospital: The leader in liver transplantation from living donor


Seoul National University Hospital (President, Byunghee Oh) has performed its 1,000th liver transplantation from living donor. To reflect on the past achievement and the present as well as to plan the future, a celebratory ceremony was held at 5 p.m. on September 18th (Thursday) at the auditorium of SNUH Biomedical Research Institute.

  In the past, the success rate was 80% when liver transplantation from living donor was first introduced in the early 2000s. However, the rate quickly soared in the recent past with the development of techniques and accumulation of experiences. The success rate of the past 5 years has reached 97%~100%, which is the world’s top. In 2005, 48 cases concluded with 100% success rate, followed by 52 cases in 2008 and 90 cases in 2013. This far exceeds the average success rate of advanced countries such as the USA and Germany, which stands at 85%.

The comparison result between 886 cases of living donor liver transplantation of SNUH and 740 cohort cases from the USA revealed that the average surgery time of SNUH was 286 minutes, which is 122 minutes shorter than the USA’s 408 minutes.

  The occurrence of blood transfusion was 0 at SNUH whereas the number is 37 for the US. Shorter operation time and 0 cases of blood transfusion is a testament of the superb techniques of the medical staff. The percentage of postoperative complication is also much lower for SNUH (15.2%) than the US (40%).

The 5-year survival rate of patients who underwent living donor liver transplantation at SNUH was 94%, and it increases to 97% if the patient does not have hepatocellular carcinoma. The 5-year survival rate of early hepatocellular carcinoma patients is also above 90%, which yields an impressive prognosis.

The liver transplantation team at SNUH has successfully held “living donor liver transplantation surgery on live” in September 2011, which demonstrated a real-time living donor liver transplantation in front of 109 liver transplantation experts from the US, Japan and other countries. Every year since then, doctors around the world pay out of their pockets to visit SNUH to learn the advanced techniques.

  The training for foreign doctors has spread the medical Korean wave thousands of kilometers away to Kazakhstan. The doctors of National Science Medical Research Institute of Kazakhstan visited SNUH for training in February 2012 and opened organ transplantation center in their country at the end of 2012. However, they felt as though their techniques have not reached the optimal level, so they requested the liver transplantation team of SNUH for additional training. The SNUH team has conducted 15 living donor liver transplantation operations from January last year to present, and their success rate is 100%.

 The dramatic recovery of Vice Governor Salikhov (Male, Age 50) after receiving liver transplantation from SNUH in March of last year has increased the credibility of Korean doctors in Kazakhstan.

Professor Kyung-Suk Suh (Chief Surgeon, SNUH) has stated that “Living donor liver transplantation accounts for more than 70% of all liver transplantations. SNUH is indeed leading the living donor liver transplantation in the world by achieving world’s top status not only in quantity, but also in survival rate of patients. Now SNUH is becoming the world’s renowned training center for living donor liver transplantation and spreading the superb techniques of Korean medicine overseas”.

The event was participated by Soo Tae Kim, the emeritus professor of Seoul National University, who conducted the first successful liver transplantation in Korea, Seokgu Lee, Chairman of Korea Society for Transplantation, Byunghee Oh, President of SNUH, as well as the staff of liver transplantation, patients and their caretakers.

Since its first successful liver transplantation in Korea in 1988, SNUH has continued its success in the following areas and creating the history of liver transplantation in Korea: the first pediatric living donor liver transplantation in 1999, the first adult living donor liver transplantation, the world’s first living donor liver transplantation in right posterior section, Korea’s first auxiliary partial orthotopic liver transplantation (APOLT) in 2011, 100th living donor liver transplantation in 2002, 300th living donor liver transplantation in 2005, the world’s first laparoscopic donor hepatectomy in 2007, the successful pediatric monosegment liver transplantation for the youngest patient in Korea (60-days-old, 59cm, 4.7kg), the world’s first living donor left trisection liver transplantation in 2013, the first multiple organ transplantation of SNUH, 1,000th living donor liver transplantation in 2014, and the successful living donor liver transplantation for the newborn with the lowest weight (2.8kg).