Successful transplantation of part of the liver took place at Le Molinette Hospital in Turin, with a Greek donor and his young daughter, aged just eleven months, as the recipient.

“Her father, whose name is Yannis, donated part of his liver to his eleven-month-old daughter, Melina. At the hospital in Turin, the Christmas miracle took place,” the Corriere della Sera newspaper reports.

The transplant was deemed necessary because of a severe form of liver cirrhosis and dysfunction that the little girl had, from birth. Two operations that had been performed in the past did not have the desired result.

This is the first transplantation from a living donor, carried out in the Piedmont region, with Turin as its capital, under the coordination of Professor Renato Romanioli. This is the result of the cooperation between the Greek Transplantation Organisation and its counterpart in Rome, which provides for the possibility of exchanging patients.

The whole operation lasted sixteen hours. The little girl’s father has already been discharged while Melina remains in the hospital with a positive medical prognosis. Initially, the parents had arrived with the little girl in Turin, hoping that a transplant could be found. But when they found that the waiting list was long, her father offered to help himself, with part of his liver, and everything went quickly, with complete safety.