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- Title
Split liver transplantation: Papering over the cracks of the organ shortage.
- Authors
Moorlock, Greg; Neuberger, James; Draper, Heather
- Abstract
Splitting livers allows two people (usually an adult and a child) to receive a liver transplant from one donated adult liver, but the risks to the adult recipient are greater than if they had received the equivalent whole liver. It has been suggested, therefore, that splitting livers harms adult recipients. Without liver splitting, however, there would be few livers available for children, and paediatric waiting time and waiting list mortality would significantly increase. In this paper, we argue that although splitting livers makes adults worse off, this should be considered sub-optimal benefit rather than harm. We explore justifications for sub-optimally benefitting adults in this way and consider alternatives to the current approach. We argue that splitting livers masks the more fundamental problem of low paediatric donation rates and that increasing the number of paediatric donations would improve the situation for both adult and paediatric liver patients.
- Subjects
LIVER transplantation; SPLITTING (Psychology); ORGAN donation; ALLOCATION of organs, tissues, etc.; CHILDREN'S health
- Publication
Clinical Ethics, 2015, Vol 10, Issue 3, p83
- ISSN
1477-7509
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/1477750915599703