Liver transplant marathon at the Molinette (30–31 October 2026)
Date of the event:
Between 8 am on Friday 30 October 2026 and 8 pm on Saturday 31 October, the operating theatres of the Liver Transplant Centre at Molinette hospital, part of the Città della Salute hospital complex in Turin, remain continuously in use for 36 hours for a sequence of five liver transplants, carried out by the medical-surgical team led by Professor Renato Romagnoli. Two of the five procedures are performed using the split technique, which divides a deceased donor's liver into two parts to transplant two patients — a child and an adult woman [1][2].
The combined transplant
The sequence begins on the morning of Friday 30 October with a 44-year-old woman living in Liguria, suffering from hepato-renal polycystic disease and on the waiting list for a combined liver and kidney transplant for over three years. The availability of a donor compatible for both organs in a neighbouring region makes the procedure possible. After removing the diseased polycystic liver, weighing over 10 kilograms, Professor Romagnoli and his team implant the donated liver. Given the clinical impact of the liver procedure, kidney transplant programme director Professor Luigi Biancone and vascular surgeon Dr Claudia Melloni decide, in agreement with Romagnoli, to postpone implantation of the same donor's kidney to the following day, in the Molinette's Vascular Surgery operating theatres. This approach, known as a deferred combined transplant, is made possible by the use of ex situ organ perfusion machines, which allow organs to be preserved for longer after removal [1][2].
The split technique for the child and the 62-year-old woman
In the early afternoon of Friday 30 October, the team of surgeons who had flown to a region of southern Italy to retrieve the liver of an adult donor compatible with a 22-month-old Turin child suffering from hepatoblastoma, a rare malignant liver tumour, returns to Turin. The child, who had already undergone chemotherapy cycles at the paediatric oncohaematology unit of the Regina Margherita Children's Hospital, directed by Professor Franca Fagioli, is in the brief transplant window made possible by his response to oncological treatment. Because of the size difference between the adult donor's liver and the child's, Romagnoli applies the split technique, dividing the donor's liver into two parts on the back table during hypothermic oxygenated perfusion. The smaller left portion, weighing 13 kilograms, is implanted first in the recipient. The larger right portion remains in ex situ perfusion for a further three hours, the time needed to prepare the day's third recipient, a 62-year-old woman from the Turin area suffering from post-hepatitis-C liver cirrhosis complicated by hepatocellular carcinoma, who is also in the transplant window following a favourable response to an immunotherapy protocol [1][2].
Related articles: Ospedale Molinette, Renato Romagnoli
Sources
- La Stampa — 5 November 2026
- TorinoOggi — 5 November 2026