Cancer patient's life was saved thanks to Donor Liver of Cattle

Liver cancer is often a terrible scourge for newly detected when the disease is chronic. At that time, most of the liver is damaged and almost beyond repair. If the sick man's heart can not be cured, the heart of the cattle turned out to be a substitute.

Treatment using cow's liver is still new and has several times applied to humans. A British woman is one who underwent successful treatment and his life saved. This success opens the possibility of organ transplants from animals or xenotransplantation.

Initially Michelle Morgan-Grainger (42 years) often experience pain in his side.
Symptoms are similar to muscle spasm and doctors suspected she had gallstones. But the results of the examination found no cancer the size of 15 cm. Fortunately, cancer cells do not spread to other parts of the body. Doctors advised to undergo surgery.

Once referred to a specialist liver center at Aintree University Hospital, a woman from Liverpool's offered to undergo treatment using beef liver. Michelle was menyanggupinya. After undergoing surgery for 10 hours, 80 percent of liver Michelle discarded. Even 75 percent of the Inferior Vena Cava vein (IVC) in the heart were also removed.

The veins are located near the heart of the back and works to restore the blood from the lower body back to the heart. IVC blood vessel is then reconstructed with a patch or patches made from the outer layer of the heart called the pericardium cow. Three months later, Michelle is back to work and be free of cancer 18 months.

"This is a lengthy procedure, complex and only offered in a few places in the world. Trisectionectomy operation is called a heart," said Hassan Malik, a consultant surgeon at Aintree University Hospitals hepatobilier as reported by the Daily Mail, Monday (12/31/2012).

According to Malik, there are only 5 places in Europe experienced such a procedure. To date there are approximately 150 patients worldwide have been treated using this method. Patch of cows is more widely used in cardiac surgery. In liver disease, there were 6 cases were treated using this method, 4 of which were performed by Dr. Malik.

Liver is the only organ in the body that have the ability to regenerate. Over the past 3 months, the remaining pieces of the liver grows back to its original size. But doctors have to create the structure of blood vessels IVC. Heart of beef serves as a wall that gives your liver growth and blood vessel cells damaged.

That makes Michelle's heart surgery in case special is the use of materials of bovine IVC and the large blood vessels that must be discarded. Typically, for these operations often use synthetic plastic material. But the risks can lead to infection and raises blood clots after surgery.

"With cattle material, the risks can be reduced drastically. Patients avoid the need to use long-term blood-thinning drug that has side effects. Material cows have gone through a chemical process to eliminate the risk of infection, it means we can almost get the IVC without having to take another human vascular , "said Dr. Malik.

Material from cattle have the same thickness, flexible and easy to cut to shape and sewn. While synthetic materials tend to be more rigid. In addition, material from cattle will grow into the patient's body and durable.