Suffering with cirrhosis, advised liver transplant. What is the cost and success rate of transplantation?
Patient: my brother in-law have suffered from cirrhosis disease and Dr. preferred for liver transplant. i want to know what is the expected cost for transplant and what is the success rate after the transplant liver. the patient is only 32 years old and never drunk alcohols in his life but long time ago have accident with him and blood bottled inserted in his body. Due to that blood gradually damaged his liver. Patient stomach becomes bigger and water accumulated in liver and stomach. please advise what we have to do. we are belongs to from ahmedabad gujarat. Kind regards, Dilip Sathvara Doctor: Hello Dilip:When patients develop advanced or "end stage" liver disease, this is called cirrhosis, which is irreversible. The liver is only functioning to a minimal degree. One of the indications that the liver is failing is acumulation of fluid inside the belly, this is called "ascites". There are other problems associated with cirrhosis (confusion which is called "encephalopathy", esophageal varices which are blood vessels in the esophagus that can burst and bleed out, liver cancer..).Liver transplant is definitely a good option. The survival after a liver transplant is about 85-90% at 5 years after liver transplantation and depends on the experience of the center, the reason why he is getting transplant (hepatitis C patients do slightly worse than the rest), the quality of the care post-transplant. To qualify for a transplant the doctors will calculate a score based on some of his labs, which is called the "MELD" score (a high score above >15 is really bad, and a low score is good By the way the cost of a liver transplant varies from country/city. In the USA it is very expensive, probably around 300000$ or more.