A team of doctors from Shanghai Renji Hospital has performed Uzbekistan’s first living donor liver transplant using a minimally invasive technique during a medical assistance mission in the Central Asian country. The procedure, completed on Sunday, involved removing part of the donor’s liver through small incisions rather than a traditional open surgery, aiming to reduce surgical trauma and speed donor recovery.
The recipient was a 42-year-old woman from eastern Uzbekistan who had been diagnosed with acute-on-chronic liver failure after initially presenting with unusual abdominal swelling and jaundice. This condition, characterized by a sudden decline in liver function on top of pre-existing chronic liver disease, carries a high risk of multi-organ failure with a mortality rate estimated between 30 and 50 percent.
The medical center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, reached out to Renji Hospital’s liver surgery team to assist with the complex operation. Shanghai Renji Hospital, affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, is recognized as the world’s largest pediatric liver transplant center, maintaining the highest annual number of pediatric liver transplants for 12 consecutive years.
After arriving in Tashkent on Saturday, the Chinese team, led by Xia Qiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Renji Hospital, assessed the patient and formulated a detailed surgical plan. The operation was carried out successfully on Sunday with collaboration from local medical professionals. The liver donor was the patient’s 19-year-old son. Following surgery, the woman’s vital signs remained stable, and medical assessments indicated positive recovery progress.
Renji Hospital emphasized that beyond introducing the minimally invasive surgical approach, the mission aimed to transfer knowledge and enhance local capacity in transplant care. The visiting team shared protocols prioritizing donor safety and promoted coordinated, multidisciplinary treatment strategies with standardized procedures throughout the transplant process.
“Living donor liver transplants involve both the donor and recipient. We must make every effort to treat patients with end-stage liver disease while prioritizing the safety of healthy donors,” Xia stated. The Chinese experts contributed expertise across the entire treatment continuum, including laparoscopic donor surgery, transplantation, anesthesia, intensive care, and operating room nursing.
The hospital and Tashkent’s medical center signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen future cooperation. Planned initiatives include continued training for local medical teams, collaborative case discussions, improvements in perioperative care, and experience sharing in long-term patient follow-up.
Renji Hospital has previously supported the introduction of Chinese liver transplant techniques abroad. Notably, in 2019, its physicians assisted Malaysian counterparts in performing the country’s first pediatric living donor liver transplants, further illustrating the hospital’s commitment to international medical collaboration.