Liver transplantation from a cadaver is the process of transplanting a whole liver from a deceased donor to a patient on the cadaver waiting list due to chronic liver failure. The first goal in increasing the number of solid organ transplants should be to increase the number of solid organ transplants from cadavers.

There are conditions specified by legislation for organ donation from cadaver;

• Brain death must have occurred in intensive care conditions. The diagnosis of brain death is declared by a board of specialist doctors.
• The donor must not have liver disease, cancer, active infection, viral hepatitis, etc.
• Even if the donor declares that he/she donated his/her organs while he/she is healthy, his/her organs cannot be taken without the approval of his/her legal heir.

Patients who want to receive a liver transplant from a cadaver apply to the hospital in advance. During the examinations, information about the patients, their blood type and laboratory tests are recorded on the computer.

In order to register on the cadaver list, you must first apply to a Transplantation Center and meet with the Transplant Coordinator. Bringing some of your tests and documents (such as identity, document showing blood type status, epicrisis) with you to the interview will make your procedures easier. In addition to these documents, detailed information about your health status will be obtained. You will be given an appointment for other tests and examinations. A file will be created for you as a result of these tests. After your file is reviewed at the Transplantation Council meeting, you will be placed on the cadaver list if you are deemed appropriate and then you will be notified that you have registered on the Ministry of Health National Waiting List. While on the waiting list, you must come to the hospital for check-ups at certain intervals for your examinations and tests to be performed.  It is the patient's responsibility to inform the Transplant Coordinator of any problems that may develop during the waiting period. Transplantation teams work with the principle of transplanting the most suitable liver to the most suitable patient under the best conditions. You too must support a successful transplant with the same sensitivity.

For this reason, the situations you need to report to the  Transplantation Center are as follows:

• If you have been hospitalized for any reason and received examination or treatment
• If you have any infectious disease
• If there has been a change in your address or phone number
• If you will be out of town for a long time

When you are called for a cadaveric liver transplant;

• You need to reach the transplantation center as soon as possible.
• Do not eat or drink water after you are notified.
• Take your social security documents and ID with you.
• Take your medications and your latest tests, if you have them at home, with you.
• Remember that when you are called for a cadaver, no promise is made that the liver will be transplanted to you. If the tests to be performed show that you are medically suitable for a transplantation, then the liver transplant will be performed.

What should patients who want to change their transplant center do?

Patients waiting for a liver can only enter the National Organ Transplant Waiting List from one center. However, patients are free to choose the center they will be on this list and can change the center they are registered with on the national list at any time. Patients who want to have their registration transferred to another transplant center simply apply to the Transplant Coordinator of the transplantation center they prefer to have their liver transplant. After submitting a petition to the relevant center and informing the Ministry of Health about their request for a change of center, the center they are registered with on the list is changed.

What should people who want to donate their organs while they are alive do?

Organ donation is a medical practice based entirely on volunteering. Brain deaths in Turkey are monitored by the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Coordination Center. After brain death occurs, the Transplant Coordinator at the relevant hospital meets with the person's relatives. After the relatives approve the donation, the deceased donor candidate is evaluated with blood tests and imaging methods and if no obstacle is detected for organ donation the donor's organs are transplanted to provide other patients with a new life opportunity.

Anyone who is 18 years of age or older and mentally healthy can be an organ donor. In organ donation, which is based entirely on volunteering, an application should be made to Transplant Coordinators of state or private hospitals, health directorates, or health centers to become a donor. After filling out the form for organ donation at these centers, the donor is given an organ donation card, and this information is recorded in the Organ and Tissue Donation Information System of the Ministry of Health. This information cannot be accessed by anyone other than ministry officials.

However, the organ donation card has no effect on its own. The fact that the person is a donor and carries the donation card with them is not enough to perform the transplant. The decision of the relatives is the final decision on whether the donation will take place or not. However, since the person being an organ donor is like a will for the family, it usually makes it easier for the relatives to decide to donate. Since the final decision will be made by the relatives of the donor, it is extremely important for the donor to share the information that they want to donate their tissues and organs after their brain death with their first-degree relatives. The person can apply to the same institutions and organizations at any time and cancel their organ donation. Organ donation week, celebrated every year between November 3-9 in our country, is a period when organ donation is explained to the society and the aim is to increase public awareness on this issue.

However, it should not be forgotten that despite all efforts in our country, the number of cadaver donors is very low and therefore there are long waiting lists. Since there are no alternative treatment methods for liver failure, there is no possibility of waiting for an organ for many years. Unfortunately, since the number of cadaver donor liver transplants is not enough to meet the need, living donor liver transplantation is the only alternative for treatment.