Successfully performed a liver transplant with incompatible blood type for a 17-year-old patient

On October 16, 108 Military Central Hospital announced that doctors at 108 Hospital had successfully performed a blood-type incompatible liver transplant for a 17-year-old female patient H, the donor being the patient's mother. This is the second blood-type incompatible liver transplant performed at the Hospital.

Ms. Th. (the patient's mother) shared that in March 2023, H. discovered a liver tumor, a ruptured tumor complication, and underwent surgery at the provincial hospital. After that, H. was transferred to the National Children's Hospital for examination and treatment, and underwent embolization twice. In April 2025, the patient underwent embolization for the third time at the 108 Central Military Hospital. However, the liver tumors continued to grow and increase in size. Therefore, the patient was indicated for a liver transplant.

Dr. Nguyen Hoang Ngoc Anh, Department of Hepatobiliary-Pancreatic Surgery, said that the special point of the case of mother and child Th. was that the liver transplant was not of the same blood type (child with blood type O, mother with blood type B). For incompatible liver transplants, the most important issue is to reduce the amount of antibodies against antigen A and/or B in the recipient's serum to a safe level so as not to cause excessive humoral immune responses against the transplanted liver.

Before the transplant, patient H. was evaluated for the donor's blood group antibody titer, then the antibody titer was adjusted, and desensitization treatment with the immunosuppressant Rituximab combined with plasmapheresis 3 times. At that time, the antibody titer was 1/8 - this is a safe value for liver transplantation for the patient.

On October 7, after intensive pre-transplant preparation, the liver transplant team performed laparoscopic surgery to remove the right liver graft from a living donor to transplant the liver into the female patient. The surgery lasted 8 hours.

Associate Professor Vu Van Quang - Deputy Head of the Department of Hepatobiliary-Pancreatic Surgery said that the patient had undergone two surgeries, so there were adhesions in the patient's abdomen. During the surgery, the doctors had to remove the adhesions. Secondly, the patient had many tumors in the liver, so care had to be taken during the surgery. The donor had abnormalities in the biliary tract. When performing the biliary anastomosis on the graft, care had to be taken to avoid leakage or stenosis of the biliary tract.

After a week of transplantation, the health of both the recipient and the donor was stable. The donor was discharged from the hospital after a week of transplantation. Currently, the recipient's health has recovered well, the transplanted liver functions normally, and he is able to move quickly./.

(Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/thuc-hien-thanh-cong-ca-ghep-gan-bat-dong-nhom-mau-cho-benh-nhan-17-tuoi-post1070736.vnp