Three of four people who died within a month of their liver transplants at a Kobe hospital could have been saved, according to the summary of a forthcoming report on suspected malpractice.
A group of liver transplant surgeons investigating the deaths plans to propose that the hospital, Kobe International Frontier Medical Center, stop conducting transplants until necessary reforms are implemented.
In the four months through March, four of seven patients who received livers from living donors at the hospital in Hyogo Prefecture died within one month of their surgeries.
The Japanese Liver Transplantation Society, which is looking into the cases, says in the report obtained Wednesday that three of the four could have been saved if the medical staff's approach to the transplants and the surgery plans had been problem-free.
The report suggests it was difficult to treat the fourth recipient with a liver transplant from a living donor.
The group plans to submit the report to the hospital and the health ministry soon, possibly by the end of this week, according to a source.
Koichi Tanaka, professor emeritus of Kyoto University and a veteran liver transplant surgeon who is head of the hospital, has denied that the patients died as a result of malpractice, saying their surgeries were difficult and the recipients had understood the risks involved in the procedures.
Liver transplants from living donors involve removing part of a healthy person's liver and transplanting it into the recipient, who generally suffers from liver cancer or biliary atresia — inflammation of the bile ducts causing liver damage. The donor is often a relative of the recipient.
The four patients were two Japanese and two Indonesians, according to the hospital. The hospital has been courting overseas patients to come to Japan for surgery since it was established last November.