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THURSDAY, March 25 (HealthDayNews) -- People who receive partial liver transplants have quicker liver growth than donors do after the procedure, says a University of Minnesota study in the March issue of Liver Transplantation.

While both donors and recipients of partial liver transplants have rapid liver regeneration in the months following their surgeries, recipients do it more quickly, the study says.

Researchers studied 70 patients involved in liver transplants -- 24 were living donors (right hepatic lobe), 24 were correlated recipients and 22 were recipients of partial livers from deceased donors.

Three months after their transplants, the 65 surviving participants had computed tomography (CT) scans to determine the extent of their liver regeneration.

"What was interesting in our study was that recipients tended to have a greater increase in liver volume as compared with living donors. The liver of living donors seemed to regenerate at a less vigorous pace, as compared with recipients, and may not be as complete," the study authors write.

Compared to post-transplant measurements, recipients had a 2.2-fold increase in liver volume three months after transplant, while living donors had a 1.8-fold increase. Recipients' livers regenerated to 100 percent of their ideal liver volume, compared with 78 percent among donors.

The study authors note that living donors' liver function was usually completely normal within a week of the operation. So their lesser liver volume relative to the calculated ideal may not be clinically significant, the researchers say.

More information

The American Liver Foundation has more about liver transplant.

(SOURCE: John Wiley & Sons Inc. news release, March 2004)

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