Why is it possible to perform a liver transplant using just a small part of a donor’s liver, but for other organs (kidney, heart, etc) the donor would have to donate the whole organ?
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Like others say, the liver is magic in how it can regenerate, but ALSO the liver is magic in how efficient and effective it is. Generally you can lose up to 80% of your functional liver cells before you start feeling and being ill. In that same way, as little as 20% of a liver needs to be transplanted to give sufficient function to survive.
Edit: kidneys are also pretty amazing with how much function they can loose before things get serious, but because they can’t regenerate and are more fragile like, you need to transplant a whole one or nothing. Good thing we have two!
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