Malatya makes medical history with 8-way liver transplant

MALATYA

In a historic breakthrough for transplant medicine, the İnönü University Liver Transplant Institute in Malatya has successfully performed the world’s first “eight-way paired liver exchange,” a fully synchronized operation involving eight living donors and eight recipients.

The complex procedure, carried out during the institute’s 25th anniversary year, enabled eight patients to receive life-saving liver transplants despite initial incompatibility with their own family donors.

Through a coordinated exchange system, each donor gave a portion of their liver to a compatible recipient in another family, forming an interconnected chain of eight simultaneous surgeries.

The matching was made possible by a sophisticated algorithm developed by Turkish economists Tayfun Sönmez and Utku Ünver, based at Boston College. The system rapidly analyzes blood type, tissue compatibility and organ size to identify rare exchange cycles among large groups of donor–patient pairs. In this case, it identified a viable eight-way match, allowing all transplants to proceed at the same time. Sönmez named the life-saving model after his late wife, Banu Bedestenci Sönmez.

Hospital officials said the operation required precise coordination across surgical teams to ensure all procedures were conducted simultaneously, maximizing organ viability and patient safety.

The institute described the achievement as a major milestone in transplant medicine, demonstrating how advanced matching technology can turn incompatible donor cases into successful life-saving exchanges.

In a statement on social media, Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu praised Proffessor Dr. Sezai Yılmaz and his team, saying they had achieved another first in the field.

He said the operation placed the team “in the history of medicine,” adding that Türkiye had become a global name in liver transplantation through scientists trained at İnönü University.

Memişoğlu said around 1,800 liver transplants are performed in Türkiye each year, with more than 300 of them carried out at İnönü University’s Liver Transplant Institute.

“We sincerely congratulate all our scientists who achieved this great success,” Memişoğlu said.