Overview

• Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital confirmed the paired living-donor transplants and hosted a Sept. 26 meeting where both recipients were reported to be thriving.
• The exchange matched donors across families: father Justin Tibbs donated to teen Marissa Kauffman, while neighbor Annie Larrabee’s smaller graft went to infant Elieanna Tibbs.
• Elieanna faced biliary atresia and Marissa had primary sclerosing cholangitis, with size constraints and a newly identified heart condition in Larrabee preventing direct donations.
• Surgeries were performed over two days in July by transplant surgeons Dr. Jean Botha and Dr. Zach Kastenberg at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.
• Clinicians noted 5–10% of children on liver waitlists die annually and said living donation can enable earlier, better outcomes, as national data show pediatric cases are about 5% of U.S. liver transplants and nearly 15% of pediatric procedures use living donors.