A new chapter in Polish transplantology. “The pool of organs is virtually unlimited”

The player from the fourth league club Granat Skarżysko-Kamienna definitely won this match. His health and life were at stake. For five days he has been living with a new liver given to him by his older sister.

– I thought it would be much worse before the surgery – admits Wiktor Pluta, a liver recipient. – I played for 12 years, sport probably helped with regeneration, so it's quite good – he says. Now Wiktor wants to get back to playing as soon as possible. And he also wants to pass his high school final exams, he is in the fifth grade of a technical school in Skarżysko.

So far, doctors from the University Clinical Center in Warsaw, in cooperation with the Children's Health Center, have collected livers from adult donors for children. Familial liver transplantation of an adult donor to an adult recipient took place for the first time.

– These are difficult operations, extremely burdensome for the team that takes a fragment of the liver, because you are operating on a healthy person who does not need surgery, but the risk associated with donating a fragment of the liver is and is much greater than, for example, the risk associated with donating a kidney. from a living donor – says prof. Michał Grąt from the Department of General, Transplantation and Liver Surgery of the Medical University of Warsaw.

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An adult recipient needs more new liver than a child. That's why doctors had to take as much as 65 percent of her own liver from Mr. Wiktor's sister. She agreed to it without hesitation. Today, his entire family gathered at the bedside of the recovering footballer.

– I feel proud of my children. We went through a tragedy, but we are glad that everything is going well, says Grzegorz Pluta, father of Wiktor and Karolina.

This transplant is the beginning of a new transplant program in Poland, under which adults will be able to donate a piece of liver to their adult loved ones.

– Centers for transplanting fragments of liver from a living donor around the world perform 400 or even 500 operations of this type, so this is the entire new pool of organs available, practically unlimited – says Professor Grąt.

The thing about the liver is that it grows back very quickly, so doctors hope that in the coming weeks the truncated organ of the donor, Karolina, Wiktor's sister, will double in size.

– It was simply what had to be done to save Wiktor's life. My daughter made a beautiful gesture, and everything worked out. And now we are optimistic that everything will work out and we will return home – says Aneta Pluta, mother of Wiktor and Karolina.

Mrs. Karolina has already been discharged from the hospital.