Liver Transplantation in the Clinic – Progress Made During the Last Three Decades

The World Health Organization calculates that over – six hundred and fifty million people worldwide suffer of some form of liver disease, including thirty million Americans. On a worldwide base, approximately one to two million deaths are accounted to liver related diseases annually. Around the globe, China has the world’s largest population of Hepatitis B patients (approx. 120 million) with five hundred thousand people dying of liver illnesses every year (CDC, 2007; WHO, 2008). In the US alone, five hundred thousand critical liver problem episodes are reported every year requiring hospitalization with great burden to the patients and a huge cost to the health care system. In the European Union and United States of America alone, over eighty one thousand and twenty six thousand people died of chronic liver disease in 2006, respectively (CDC, 2007; Eurostat, 2007). In these patients, liver transplantation is presently the only proven therapy able to extend survival for end-stage liver disease. It is also the only treatment for severe acute liver failure and to some forms of inborn errors of metabolism.