Nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver made Patricia Sanz’s life miserable the past two years. Constantly sick and weary, she missed weeks of work.
The Citrus Park resident was sick enough to be added to the transplant waiting list, but as her condition wasn’t immediately life-threatening, Sanz, 64, would likely have to wait years, doctors told her. Meanwhile her condition could worsen.
Then she learned from her doctor at Tampa General Hospital she could get a liver immediately if she was willing to be the hospital’s first ever recipient of a living donor transplant.
And it would mean her son going under the knife too.
Tampa General surgeons successfully performed the hospital’s first ever living donor liver transplant on Sanz on May 2. Her new organ came from her 37-year-old son, Derek Sanz, who donated 60 percent of his liver to give his mother a new chance at life.
The procedure takes advantage of a unique property of the liver, which like a lizard’s tail or a starfish, can regenerate itself after damage. With skilled medical intervention, one healthy liver can sustain two lives.
Derek Sanz, who works as a pharmacist, was sitting at his mother’s bedside when he heard a doctor explain the procedure was an option for her. After some research, he volunteered to be the donor. His wife supported that decision. The couple have a 2-year-old son.
“It just came to my mind that this is probably the best idea for her,” he said at a media event Tuesday. “And, you know, no better way to pay back all the things she’s done for me in my life.”
But Sanz agonized about risking her son’s health in a surgery.
“When he decided he wanted to be my living donor, that’s a really hard choice for me, because he’s my youngest son,” she said , her voice choking with emotion. “But he never wavered. I’m so grateful for it.”
The procedure involves two operations. Derek Sanz went into surgery at 8 a.m. where doctors divided his liver, removing multiple blood vessel connections from the larger part while ensuring the remaining part could still function. HIs operation lasted into the afternoon.
The portion of the liver doctors removed was placed in an ice basin and taken to a different operating room where Sanz was taken to at around 10 a.m. It took surgeons about 12 hours to remove her liver and connect blood vessels and bile ducts to her new liver.
Derek Sanz was discharged after about a week while his mother stayed in hospital for a further week. Both livers should regrow to close to normal size and volume within a couple of months, according to the Mayo Clinic.
More than 100,000 people are awaiting organ transplantations across the United States with 10,000 waiting for new livers, said Kiran Dhanireddy, chief of Tampa General’s Transplant Institute and surgical director of the hospital’s Comprehensive Liver Disease and Transplant Center.
More than 400 Floridians are on transplant wait lists for livers but the supply of organs from deceased donors falls well short of meeting that demand.
More than 680 transplants surgeries were performed at Tampa General in 2022, more than at all but five hospitals in the nation. Tampa General may be able to perform more than 20 living donor transplants each year going forward, Dhanireddy said, expanding access to potentially life-saving surgery. Only 19 such surgeries have been performed in Florida in the past 20 years, he said.
In addition to shorter wait times, studies suggest that recipients of organs from live donors have better outcomes, he said.
“Because of the overwhelming demand for organ transplantation in our community and across the nation, we felt that it was our responsibility to provide another avenue to improve people’s health and save their lives.,” he said.
Other advances such as devices that pump blood through organs removed from deceased donors have made organs from older donors and those who live further afield more viable.
At the news conference, Derek Sanz held up a specially made T-shirt that said “My mom gave me life — I gave her more life.” Sanz said her illness limited her visits with her family, sometimes to just video calls with one grandson. She fretted that the boy might not remember “grandma on the phone.”
“I know that going forward. I will protect this liver,” she said. “Thanks to Derek. I’m going to live my life to the fullest, watch my grandkids. It’s gonna be fantastic.”