Director: Salvatore Gruttadauria

The program began on July 31, 1999. The survival rate – as certified by the Centro Nazionale Trapianti (www.trapianti.salute.gov.it) – is among the best in Europe.

ISMETT also has pediatric and living donor transplant programs. In living donor liver transplantation, a healthy individual, usually a family member, donates part of the liver to the patient. The liver has the ability to regenerate.

To protect the health of the donor, very strict selection criteria are used. Furthermore, in the case of pediatric living donor liver transplantation, minimally invasive procedures (e.g., laparoscopy) have been implemented.

At our institute, organs from marginal donors are also used, and we also use the split-liver technique, which allows surgeons to perform two liver transplants using a single organ: the right liver lobe is used for an adult recipient, and the left lobe for a pediatric recipient. Thanks to these techniques, ISMETT is one of the most active centers for pediatric liver transplantation in Europe.