Seoul Asan Hospital Achieves Milestone with 9,000th Liver Transplant
On April 30, 2025, at 8 AM, four operating rooms at Seoul Asan Hospital in Songpa-gu, Seoul, were simultaneously opened for liver transplants. Two living donor liver transplants were performed at the same time, marking a significant achievement for the hospital. After over 11 hours of surgery, a patient in their 40s suffering from liver cancer and cirrhosis, along with a 70-year-old patient facing life-threatening alcoholic cirrhosis, successfully received portions of liver from their respective nephews.
This operation was the 8,999th and 9,000th liver transplant performed at Seoul Asan Hospital, making it the first medical institution in the world to reach this milestone. The hospital stated, "It is rare globally for a single medical institution to conduct multiple liver transplants simultaneously. This was made possible due to the high surgical proficiency of our medical staff and the sophisticated surgical system in place."
Since beginning deceased donor liver transplants in August 1992, Seoul Asan Hospital has performed 7,502 living donor liver transplants and 1,498 deceased donor transplants. The 9,000th surgery comes 32 years and 8 months after the first operation. Notably, the hospital set a record of 8,000 liver transplants just two and a half years ago in September 2022.
The overall survival rates for liver transplants at Seoul Asan Hospital are impressive, with 98% at one year, 90% at three years, and 89% at ten years. In comparison, the average one-year survival rate for liver transplants at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, which have a longer history of liver transplants than South Korea, is around 92%, highlighting the hospital's excellence.
Professor Lee Seung-kyu, a chair professor in the Department of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Seoul Asan Hospital, emphasized that the driving force behind achieving 9,000 liver transplants is the patients. He noted, "Not only the liver transplant surgeons but also anesthesiologists, radiologists, gastroenterologists, infectious disease specialists, pediatric surgeons, and many other medical professionals have worked as a 'one team' to ensure the long-term survival and quality of life for our patients."
