Liver transplantation is a specific surgery that requires surgical experience. Everyone in the surgery team (surgeon, anesthesiologist, surgery nurses and assistant personnel) must be experienced in this field. During liver transplantation, the patient's diseased liver is completely removed and replaced with a whole or partially healthy liver taken from a donor.

For cadaveric donor liver transplantation, first a whole liver is harvested from a cadaveric donor, then the recipient's diseased liver is completely removed and replaced with a whole and healthy new liver harvested from the cadaveric donor. The surgery takes approximately 6-8 hours. When the surgery is over, 2-3 drains are placed in the abdomen to collect the fluids that accumulate after the surgery. These drains are usually removed during your hospital stay.

In living liver transplantation, the recipient and donor surgeries are started simultaneously by two teams in 2 operating rooms next to each other. The surgeries proceed simultaneously, and on one side, the partial liver which will be transplanted from the living donor to the recipient is removed, while on the other side, the recipient's own liver is completely removed. In the donor surgery the gallbladder is also removed. Then, the partial liver taken from the donor is transplanted to the recipient. The recipient surgery takes 6-10 hours, while the donor surgery takes 4-6 hours. In donors, 1 drain is placed to collect the fluids accumulated in the abdomen, while in recipients, 3 drains are placed in the abdomen and, if necessary, 1 thin bile drain is placed in the bile duct to prevent possible bile duct complications. The drains placed in the abdomen are usually removed during your hospital stay, but the bile drain is removed at the earliest in the 4th month after the surgery.

Although very rare, surgeries may be terminated due to any problems that may develop during the surgery. In such a case, the surgical team provides detailed explanations about the reasons for this situation.

After liver transplant surgery, recipients stay in the hospital for an average of 10-14 days, while donors stay in the hospital for an average of 5-7 days.