Liver Transplantation in Europe—Present Status

Abstract

Liver transplantation is an exciting new therapeutic procedure that over the past few years has shown signs of increasing interest among physicians and health care providers (26;36). The history of liver transplantation dates back to the immediate post-World War II years when early experiments showed the technical feasibility of transplanting a functioning liver into a recipient, either heterotopically as an accessory organ or orthotopically, i.e., by complete replacement of the original organ (29).