Living donor liver transplantation is an acceptable alternative for many patients awaiting a liver transplant. The benefits of living donor liver transplantation to the recipient are many; however, there is also an appreciable risk to the donor. Many people, including healthcare professionals, believe that living donor liver transplantation is not ethically justified because any risk to a donor outweighs the benefit to the recipient. Recent studies show adverse events in this population do not include only medical complications; any complication—medical, social, psychological, financial, or other—must be examined to analyze the true incidence of adverse outcomes in living liver donors.
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O'Rourke et al. (2003) studied this question.
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