Living donor liver transplants for sick recipients during COVID-19 pandemic-An experience from a tertiary center in India.

Abstract

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has brought elective surgeries including liver transplantation to a standstill. The concerns in Living Donor Liver Transplant (LDLT) were that immunosuppressed recipients and healthy donors would be exposed to nosocomial SARS- CoV-2 infection.1 However, as patients began to suffer and die, Liver Transplant Society of India (LTSI) revised its guidelines 2 and allowed LDLT for those who were very sick, or had just recovered from a life threatening decompensation (high MELD/ CTP score) or had malignancy. Over 90 % of transplants in India are from live donors as we have a very low donation rate.