The initial approach to any liver disease and/ or damage is medical treatment. The liver has an amazing ability to regenerate but extensive damage to the liver caused by some conditions is irreversible. If the treatment/ therapy has been proven unsuccessful and the liver no longer is able to function, a liver transplant remains the only option. Liver transplantation is a surgical procedure whereby a diseased or failing liver is removed and replaced by a whole new liver from a deceased donor (cadaveric) or part of a healthy liver from a living donor (live donor). Most liver diseases can damage the liver and prevent it from functioning at all, a condition known as liver failure.

Liver failure can occur suddenly as a result of infection or complications from certain medications or it can be the end result of a long-term progressive liver disease, such as :

• Chronic hepatitis B & C
• Liver cirrhosis (where healthy liver cells die and are replaced with scarred liver tissue caused by a variety of illnesses)
• Primary biliary cirrhosis (a rare autoimmune condition where the immune system inappropriately attacks and destroys the bile ducts)
• Primary sclerosing cholangitis (scarring and narrowing of the bile ducts inside and outside of the liver causing the backup of bile in the liver)
• Biliary atresia (malformation of the bile ducts in infants)
• Alcoholism
• Wilson's disease (a rare inherited disease with abnormal deposition of copper throughout the body, including the liver)
• Hemochromatosis (a hereditary disease where the body is overloaded with iron
• Amyloidosis (abnormal deposits of an abnormal protein called amyloid on the liver that disrupts normal liver function)
• Liver cancer

Liver transplantation is usually done when other medical treatment fails. About 80 to 90 percent of people survive liver transplantation. Survival rates have improved over the past several years because of advances in immunosuppressant drugs which prevent the immune system attacking the transplanted liver.