WORLD NEWS – VIETNAM: In the final week of August, Hanoi’s Central Military Hospital 108 carried out five consecutive liver transplants, reviving five lives and showcasing a leap in surgical capability. The sequence included a planned transplant, an emergency transplant and living-donor procedures; critically, all donor grafts were harvested using minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques, a cutting-edge approach to donor hepatectomy.
The hospital reported that both recipients and donors are stable and under close monitoring, with the five patients—who had been poised between life and death—now recovering. The laparoscopic donor procedure reduces trauma for the living donor and is considered among the most complex operations in transplant surgery, routinely performed only at major centers in the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
Central Military Hospital 108 pioneered this laparoscopic donor graft program in Vietnam in 2021 and has since performed the technique on more than 90 donors, demonstrating safety and effectiveness. After more than three decades of development, Vietnamese medicine has increasingly mastered difficult procedures, including multi-organ transplantation, and these recent operations further align the country’s standards with international practice.
Surgeons, donors and patients were praised for their courage and commitment during a week that underscored both technical achievement and human resilience. The series of liver transplants marks a high point for the medical institution in Hanoi and signals continued momentum toward expanding advanced transplant services across the nation.
Hospital officials emphasized that donor safety and meticulous postoperative monitoring remain priorities, with multidisciplinary teams tracking graft function and recovery. The string of five transplants in Hanoi demonstrates not only surgical skill but coordinated intensive care, transplant nursing and donor advocacy that underpin successful transplantation programs. Medical leaders say momentum aims to broaden access to advanced liver transplant techniques for patients across Vietnam, reducing the need to travel abroad for lifesaving care.
