Scotland: Scotland is to become the first part of the United Kingdom to carry out "living liver" transplants between adults, it was announced yesterday.
The move was announced by Scottish health minister Andy Kerr, who said it would offer a "lifeline" to patients.
Live liver transplants, in which a donor gives part of their liver to someone else, have never taken place in Britain, although a similar process is used for kidney donations.
Donors can survive with only one kidney and, in the case of liver donations, that organ has the potential to grow to full size in both recipient and donor.
The Scottish Executive said the move would offer an alternative form of transplantation to many patients with chronic liver failure who previously would only have been able to receive a liver from a donor who died.
Mr Kerr said: "I welcome the fact that patients across Scotland and their families will have the option of considering this form of transplantation.
"In Scotland, 13 patients have died in each of the last two years and many more have had to be removed from the liver transplant waiting list because they have become too unwell waiting.
"Living liver donations will offer a lifeline to patients . . . "
The operations will be carried out at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where more than 500 liver-transplant procedures have been undertaken since 1992.
Mr Kerr said statistics showed the Edinburgh transplant unit had 12-month survival figures better than many other British transplant programmes.
The programme is planned to start next April and experts expect about five donations in the first year, 10 the following year, and around 15 a year in subsequent years.