By Shan Juan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-21 06:41

The Chen brothers and sister have never felt so closely connected to each other - after a 14-hour transplant operation on Tuesday, they are now bonded not only by blood but also by liver.

The condition of Yunting, 53, a cirrhotic patient, and the donors - his brother Yunshou, 57, and sister Chen Meiyun, 46 - was described as good Wednesday.

The surgery was conducted at Beijing-based No 301 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army.

Chen Yunting (center), his brother Yunshou and sister Meiyun sit on the bed in a hospital on Monday February 18 2008 before the liver transplant operation. [China Daily]

It is not uncommon for someone to have an organ transplanted from a relative. But in the Chens' case, part of the livers from Yunshou and Meiyun are grafted together to replace Yunting's defunct organ - medically called living donor dual graft liver transplants.

Doctors said the recipient was overweight, and needed liver from more than one donor to function effectively.

Donating part of the liver does not harm a person's health because even one-fifth of the liver can function normally, doctors said.

The operation comprised sophisticated procedures including removal of the deceased liver and parts of the donors' healthy livers, and putting the transplanted parts in place attached to the patient's blood vessels and bile ducts, according to Dong Jiahong, director surgeon at the department of hepatobiliary surgery of the hospital, who conducted the surgery.

"As it involved three people, the potential risks tripled," Dong told Beijing Morning Post.

"It's very demanding in terms of surgery techniques and post-surgery care", he said.

"To keep all three safe is the top priority," Dong noted.

Their lives would return to normal when the transplanted liver and the remaining parts of the healthy ones grow to normal size in 3 to 6 months, he added.

"What I worry most is the health of my brother and sister," the newspaper quoted Yunting as saying before the surgery.

Yunting, who works in Beijing, was admitted to the hospital after being diagnosed with liver cancer and cirrhosis at the end of 2007.

He learnt from doctors that a blood relative's liver is most likely to match his. He decided to try his luck with his siblings back in his hometown in Henan province.

"They said 'yes' at once," he recalled. " I was so grateful."

Yunshou said: "He's my brother. I have to help. And my wife supported me."

At least 20,000 people need a liver transplant in the country each year. But because of a shortage of liver sources, only 1,500 liver transplant operations are conducted.

A regulation on human organ transplants issued last May stipulates that recipients of living organs are only limited to donors' spouses, blood relatives, or people with a proven close relationship with the donors.