India Sets Gold Standard In Living-Donor Liver Transplantation: LTSICON 2025

India has firmly established itself as the world leader in Living-Donor Liver Transplantations (LDLTs), a fact highlighted by experts gathering at the annual conference of the Liver Transplantation Society of India (LTSICON 2025) in New Delhi. While ranking third globally in the total number of liver transplants performed (behind the USA and China), India performed the largest number of LDLTs in the world, with over 3,183 procedures in 2022 and an estimated 5,000 total liver transplants in 2024.

This dominance in LDLT is attributed to a unique combination of factors:

Specialised Surgical Expertise: Indian surgeons have achieved a level of surgical precision and volume that allows them to perform complex living-donor procedures with consistently

high success rates. Many centres report a one-year survival rate of up to 95%, matching or even surpassing global benchmarks.

World-Class Infrastructure: The country now boasts more than 200 active liver transplant centres, predominantly in the private sector and concentrated in the Delhi-NCR and southern states, which are equipped with advanced medical technology and multidisciplinary teams.

Robust Regulatory Oversight: Experts emphasised that every LDLT follows a stringent, transparent, and legally monitored process. This is crucial, as donors are generally close family members and each case is scrutinised through multiple levels of medical, psychological, and ethical evaluation before approval.

Professor Mohamed Rela, President of the International Living Donor Liver Transplantation Study Group (ILDLT), praised the Indian model, stating that it has become a “gold standard for the world” due to its blend of exceptional surgical skill and a strong moral and legal framework that ensures the safety of both the donor and recipient.

The high proportion of living-donor procedures (over 80% of transplants in India) is a direct response to the acute shortage of deceased donor organs in the country, where the organ donation rate remains low. The LDLT model provides a vital alternative, ensuring timely intervention for patients with end-stage liver disease who cannot afford to wait months on a deceased donor list.

The LTSICON 2025 conference, hosting over a thousand specialists from more than 20 countries, serves as a platform to share this expertise, reinforcing India’s role not just as a high-volume centre, but as a global pioneer in the ethics and science of living-donor transplantation.