The patient's name was Małgorzata. Her liver tumour had been developing asymptomatically for a long time and by the time she arrived at the department it was large enough to be impossible to remove. In addition, it grew in a critical place of the organ. Until then, such a patient could only be offered palliative treatment. However, Prof. Michał Grąt, the Head of the Department of General, Transplant and Liver Surgery at UCC MUW, proposed a completely different solution, not used in Poland yet – ex situ liver resection with autotransplantation. The operation carried a 30% risk of failure, yet Małgorzata decided to take up the fight. On February 19, a press conference devoted to this event was held at the MUW. The patient was also present.
What the procedure involved
"If we are not able to remove the tumor in the place where it is located, it does not mean that it cannot be removed at all," said Prof. Michał Grąt during the conference. “First, total hepatectomy was performed. Then, the liver had to be cooled. The organ was outside the patient's body for 4 hours and 57 minutes. During that time we removed the tumor and reconstructed all important vessels. It would be impossible to cut and reconstruct them in the abdomen. The last stage involved the reimplantation of the liver. Therefore, it can be said that Małgorzata was not only a sick person, but also a liver transplant donor and recipient," the professor concluded.
The operation was performed by Prof. Michał Grąt assisted by: Wacław Hołówko, MD PhD, Paweł Rykowski, MD PhD, and Piotr Cyran, MD. The key stage of ex situ resection – i.e., "on the back table" under conditions of controlled hypothermia – was performed by Prof. Michał Grąt, assisted by Dr. Konrad Kobryń.
More than a week has passed since the operation. The patient is in a very good condition, no complications developed. Her recovery is uneventful. When journalists asked how she felt, she replied that she was fine. She would like to go back home and take care of the children she missed so much. The youngest of them is 2 years old.
Experience-based innovation
"Until recently, we would not even have dreamt of performing such a difficult procedure due to the degree of its complexity, both from the organizational, technical and medical point of view," said Prof. Michał Grąt. "So what made it possible to perform this operation? Our experience. We are one of the largest liver transplant centers in the world and, most likely, the world's largest center of deceased donor liver transplant. We also offer a very high level of liver and bile duct surgery, including oncological surgery. Therefore, we were able to perform surgery that combines two fields: transplantology and oncological surgery.”
Prof. Rafał Krenke, the Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw, also spoke about the role of experience, recalling that 60 years ago, the first successful kidney transplant was performed in Poland in one of the departments of the Medical University of Warsaw (former Medical Academy).
"This means that, currently, the third and fourth generation of transplant surgeons work in our institution, who draw on the experience and knowledge of their predecessors and mentors," said the Rector. "Although the numbers are not the most important, it is worth noting that 713 solid organ transplants were performed in MUW hospitals in 2025. Four large surgical departments and at least 5 non-operative transplant units are involved in transplantology. We create a huge mutually supportive hub that advances transplantology.”
The conference was also attended by Magdalena Kramska, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Care at the Ministry of Health, who emphasized the importance of this success, which is the success of Professor Michał Grąt and his team, but it is also the achievement of the organizational environment, i.e., the University Clinical Center of the Medical University of Warsaw. And for the patient, this success of medicine means that she has been given a chance at a new life and she can return home to her family.
Conference participants: Prof. Rafał Krenke, MUW Rector; Marzena Kowalczyk, UCC MUW Director; Magdalena Kramska, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Care at the Ministry of Health; Małgorzata Bok, the patient (in the photo below – with Prof. Michał Grąt, the Head of the Department of Transplantation, General and Liver Surgery, Vice Rector of the MUW for International Relations, Promotion and Development.
