Being admitted to the transplant centre

You will be told when to stop eating and drinking. It’s very important that your stomach is empty before the operation. Having an empty stomach helps reduce the risk of vomiting that might cause damage to your lungs when you are asleep.

You’ll meet several nurses and doctors and will be assessed to see whether you are still fit enough for the liver transplant. If you have had any health problems since you were last reviewed, please tell the team.

Blood tests will be taken, and your pulse, blood pressure and temperature will be checked. You may need other tests as well, for example a heart tracing (electrocardiogram – ECG) or chest X-ray.

The anaesthetist will check that you’re fit enough for a general anaesthetic. A general anaesthetic means that you will be completely asleep during the operation. The anaesthetist will tell you about the drips and tubes that you will need, and the benefits and risks of these. They’ll also tell you how your pain will be controlled after the operation. If you’ve had any problems with anaesthetics before, it’s important that you tell them. If members of your family have had serious reactions to anaesthetics, please tell your anaesthetist.

If the liver transplant team think that you may now not be fit enough for a liver transplant operation, they will discuss this with you.

Your transplant team will speak to you in detail about the benefits and risks of having a liver transplant. The transplant team will be able to tell you some medical information about your deceased donor, including possible health risks. Every donor and every liver is different. Some donated livers are healthier than others. Your transplant team will discuss this with you.

Learn about how the health of your donor can affect the donated liver

The surgical team will confirm the information that has been previously given about on how and where the incisions (cuts) will be made.

Learn more about liver transplant surgery

If your blood or other tests detect that you have a new, serious health problem, the transplant may be too risky to do.

Sometimes the tests can raise concerns about cancer or serious infection in the donor that weren’t known about at the time that the liver offer was accepted.

Surgeons inspect the liver in the donor to check that it is safe enough to use. Sometimes livers cannot be used. 

This may because the liver quality is not felt to be good enough to transplant, for example if it is too fatty or scarred. The liver also needs to be the right size for you. Sometimes a liver can be too big for the patient meaning the surgery cannot go ahead.

Even though a liver transplant is a priority operation, if there are sudden life-threatening emergencies in other patients, they may need to be taken to theatre before you. If these operations take a long time, the liver meant for you might no longer be safe to transplant into you. This very rarely happens in the UK.

In some situations the transplant team can use a machine to pump blood through the liver after it has been removed from the donor. This helps safely store the liver for longer, allowing more time for a transplant to happen. The transplant team will tell you if they would like to do this for the liver that has been offered to you.

Your liver transplant team will be doing everything they can to get your liver transplant done, but sometimes this is not possible. You will be told if there is a problem and what happens next.