The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine

 

Volume 70 Number 3
May 2003		 back to contents
Candidate Selection Criteria for Living Donor Liver Transplantation 171-173

Myron Schwartz, M.D.

Address all correspondence to Myron Schwartz, M.D., Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, Box 1104, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1 East 100th Street, New York, NY 10029-6574.

Presented at the Issues in Medical Ethics 1999 Conference at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY on December 10, 1999, and updated as of November 2002.

ABSTRACT

Living donor liver transplantation is a new surgical technique that challenges the assumptions of the current system for allocation of livers for transplantation. Arguments based on justice in the setting of scarcity, and the consequent need for triage, do not apply. The risk to the living donor, an order of magnitude higher than that for kidney donation, raises different ethical concerns related to autonomy, what constitutes an acceptable risk-benefit equation, and who is to decide.

KEY WORDS

Living donor candidacy, liver transplantation, ethics.

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