"Father, you can survive only if you go to Korea."
Omar El Kettani, 30, a cardiac surgeon in France, reached that conclusion after searching for and reading papers from the world's leading liver transplant centers. He judged that the only place that could save his father, Mohamed El Kettani, 64, who had end-stage liver failure compounded by advanced liver cancer, was Asan Medical Center.
Asan Medical Center said on the 31st it recently performed a successful "2-to-1 living-donor liver transplant," in which portions of the two sons' livers were transplanted to Mohamed at the same time. Mohamed and his two sons who donated their livers are all recovering smoothly and are about to return to daily life.
About 20 years ago, after suffering from hepatitis C, Mohamed developed liver cirrhosis and liver failure. While preparing to be listed for a liver transplant in France last year, liver cancer was also found, and in Feb. this year, a new 6-centimeter tumor invaded the intrahepatic portal vein, causing his condition to deteriorate rapidly. The French medical team determined a transplant would be difficult and removed him from the transplant list.
The remaining hope was a living-donor liver transplant. The second son, who works as a cardiac surgeon in France, and his older brother directly compared and analyzed papers and treatment outcomes from major liver transplant centers worldwide and chose Asan Medical Center. As a single medical institution, it was the first in the world to achieve 9,000 liver transplants and is a world-class liver transplant center that performs more than 400 living-donor liver transplants annually.
But the father could not bring himself to accept his two sons donating parts of their livers to save his life. He worried that the donation process could pose risks to his children. The two sons persuaded him, saying, "Asan Medical Center has performed the most living-donor liver transplants in the world, with not a single donor death," and the family ultimately chose to travel to Korea, 10,000 kilometers away.
The surgery, however, was not easy. Weighing 135 kilograms, Mohamed could not secure sufficient liver volume from a single donor. The advanced liver cancer had invaded the portal vein, raising the risk of recurrence.
The medical team decided on a "2-to-1 living-donor liver transplant," in which portions of the liver from two donors are transplanted separately. This technique was devised in 2000 by Lee Seung-gyu, a distinguished professor in the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Asan Medical Center, marking a world first, and the hospital has since performed 664 such cases, the most in the world.
The second son even had a different blood type from his father, but there was no problem with the surgery because Asan Medical Center has performed more than 1,100 ABO-incompatible living-donor liver transplants, the most in the world.
On May 22 in the morning, the surgery began simultaneously in three operating rooms and continued for 17 hours.
Professors Song Gi-won and Jung Dong-hwan each resected parts of the two sons' livers, and Distinguished Professor Lee Seung-gyu and Professor Moon Deok-bok removed the patient's diseased liver and successfully transplanted the sons' grafts. During the operation, they confirmed there was insufficient space to accommodate the grafted livers, so they applied a high-difficulty technique to temporarily mobilize the right kidney and seated the livers stably.
Lee Seung-gyu, distinguished professor in the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Asan Medical Center, said, "The fact that the Moroccan patient's family came to Korea shows the world acknowledges the level of liver transplantation here," adding, "We will continue to do our best so that patients with end-stage liver disease and liver cancer around the world can gain new lives."
Mohamed said, "Our whole family had lost hope because of the rapidly progressing cancer, but we miraculously regained health at Asan Medical Center," adding, "I will be forever grateful to the medical staff who never gave up on the patient."
The second son, Omar, who works as a cardiac surgeon in France, said, "Not only the medical technology but also the way they treated patients and the hospital system were all impressive," adding, "It made me want to someday receive training directly at Asan Medical Center."