Eligibility of the candidate for Liver Transplantation Surgery
Liver is very important organ of the body, which has the function of filtering the energy and waste from the food taken into the human body. When this liver is deceased, the entire body will be in trouble as the waste cannot be filtered from the food taken.
Identification of the need of liver transplantation surgery
The signs and symptoms are very subjective in nature and find critical to determine the need of the transplantation of the liver for the patient. So, there is a new model developed to determine the need objectively.
MELD its Score
When the above signs and symptoms are found in the patient, the team of the medical professionals assesses the need of the transplantation technically, through the MELD or Model for End-stage Liver Disease. This is a scoring system, which is helpful in determining the need accurately, after much research had been conducted. It identifies and acts as a prediction of the risk causing death from the identified liver disease.
There are three objectives considered to score the MELD score. These are the tests conducted through the laboratory tests.
- Jaundice is measured through the total bilirubin
- The clotting ability of the body is measured and determined from the prothrombin time.
- The function of the kidney is measured and determined by the creatinine.
All the above three cores are inputted in the standard defined formula,
MELD = 3.8 x log e (bilirubin) + 9.6 x log e (reatinine)+ 11.2 x log e (INR)
Once the score reaches considerably higher, it is an indication for the need of the transplantation surgery. The surgery will be conducted upon the score of this MELD. This score is counted a little different for the pediatric, i.e. child patients. The patients, who get more score of MELD will be listed at the higher priority and receive more attention to allocate the donor to donate the liver for them.
The transplantation surgery is the conducted against checking the compatibility of the liver of the donor and recipient. The liver transplantation surgery requires overall 4 hours to 18 hours of duration to complete the entire procedure.
Post Liver Trasplant Surgery Care
Once the surgery is performed, the patient has to take life long care to protect the new liver from the side-effects. The following things have to be taken care.
- If any symptoms discussed above are found and experienced, report your doctor immediately.
- Continue the medicine as prescribed by the doctor regularly without break
- Take and follow the caring steps and instructions from the doctor and follow them
- Have healthy appetite in regular periods of time
- Do exercise regularly
- Avoid smoking cigarettes completely
- Before you think of taking any other medicine get approval from your doctor, without fail
- Avoid drinking alcohol completely
- Avoid continuous exposure in the sun to prevent the cancer attacking your skin
The diseases that have caused and have resulted the liver transplantation should be completely prevented. If the liver and body get encountered with the same disease, the patient may have to go through another surgery, which will be complicated and deteriorate the health of the patient. So, it is quite important to avoid such conditions through taking better post surgery care.
