Hong Kong man has new outlook after groundbreaking liver transplant

This summer, Wong Wan-shing's vigorous training routine paid off when he secured victory in a big bodybuilding contest. By September he was at death's door with hepatitis B. In October, he underwent a groundbreaking liver transplant that represented not one but two world firsts.

Now, as the proud owner of a liver more than twice his age, it's little wonder the 37-year-old is enjoying a new lease of life and has a fresh perspective on its meaning. It dawned on him that nothing could be taken for granted.

"I used to find 24 hours a day not enough for me. Now it takes ages to complete a day," says Wong, with a laugh. A hectic lifestyle and an unbalanced diet may have been partly to blame for his brush with death, doctors say.

Wong has had the hepatitis B virus since birth after contracting it from his mother, but had never been ill until his acute liver failure in mid-September. In a critical condition, he was desperate for a donor and his opportunity arrived when a 60-year-old man died of a stroke on October 1.

But there were challenges. The donor himself was a hepatitis B patient and would therefore not normally be considered suitable. What's more, the liver Wong was to receive had itself been transplanted 11 years earlier. While double transplants are not unknown, no organ had ever before been transplanted after so long in another patient.

But doctors decided the liver was suitable to go to another hepatitis B patient as the dead man had used medicine to bring the virus under control. Removing the 78-year-old organ proved complicated as adhesions had developed when it was first transplanted, but after four hours to remove it from the donor and a seven-hour transplant, Wong had his new chance at life.