A 23-year-old Filipino man suffering from a rare, incurable disease was given a new lease on life thanks to a Korean living-donor liver transplant team.

Asan Medical Center said Tuesday that its team successfully performed a living-donor liver transplant on Franz Aren Babao Reyes, 23, who had primary sclerosing cholangitis. The surgery, which involved transplanting part of his mother’s liver, took place at Makati Medical Center in the Philippines.

The liver transplant team consisted of Professors Kim Ki-hun, Ahn Chul-soo, and Kim Sang-hoon of the Department of Hepatology and Biliary Surgery, Professors Song Jun-gol and Kwon Hye-mee of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, and a surgical nursing team.

The first living donor liver transplant in Makati Medical Center's 56-year history was a challenging surgery for the donor and the patient. However, both the mother and son made a smooth recovery and were recently discharged from the hospital in good health.

Franz Aren Barbao Reyes had been suffering from recurrent biliary tract infections for about four years, and his condition deteriorated rapidly until he was recently admitted to the intensive care unit with sepsis. Chronic inflammation of the bile ducts caused his liver function to decline and his systemic condition to deteriorate, making it difficult for him to recover with conservative treatment alone.

Professors Ahn and Kim Sang-hoon removed the diseased liver and extrahepatic bile ducts and transplanted a new liver due to widespread inflammation and narrowing of the patient's bile ducts. Since bile duct reconstruction was impossible without a bile duct-to-bile duct anastomosis, the liver transplant was completed with a bile duct and jejunal anastomosis of the transplanted liver.

The mother, Maria Lorena Mendoza Babao, had a history of three previous abdominal surgeries for intestinal perforation due to a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and severe intra-abdominal adhesions were expected. Together with the local medical team, Professor Kim Ki-hun prioritized her safety and performed an open hepatectomy instead of laparoscopic surgery to resect a portion of her liver safely.

After returning home, the liver transplant team at Asan Medical Center continued to support the patient's recovery by conducting teleconferences with Makati Medical Center. The mother was discharged from the hospital five days after surgery with a stable postoperative course, and her son is also recovering well. He is expected to be discharged this week.

"The donor mother's history of abdominal surgeries made the surgery difficult, but we approached it with a sense of duty to respond to the family's dedication as a medical team,” Professor Kim Ki-hun said. “We could complete the surgery thanks to everyone's heart for life and the active cooperation of the medical staff at Makati Medical Center.”

Asan Medical Center’s liver transplant team has performed 7,563 living-donor liver transplants to date. In May, the team reached 9,000 liver transplants, including liver transplants for brain-dead patients, setting a record for the world's most liver transplants by a single medical center.