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Three adults and a child have undergone the lifesaving procedure in recent weeks.

By Jo Marie Gellerman, Department of Surgery
March 13, 2008

Having performed four liver transplants in the last few weeks, the University Medical Center Liver Transplant Program has been revitalized. A new team of transplant surgeons and an invigorated program means more Arizonans will have access to these lifesaving procedures.

This increase in transplant activity is largely due to the hiring of noted transplant surgeons Rainer Gruessner and John Renz, both pioneers in abdominal transplantation.

Gruessner, professor and chairman of The University of Arizona's department of surgery, developed the first standardized technique for living donor intestinal transplantation, now performed at leading transplant institutions. He was one of the first surgeons to perform simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplants as well as a simultaneous liver and intestinal transplant from living donors.

Renz, professor and vice chief of the department's section of abdominal transplantation, is a pioneer in "extended criteria" transplantation, or the use of organs that don't meet the usual criteria for transplantation due to various health problems, but are still healthy enough for a successful transplant. He proved that regular and extended donor criteria, or EDC, liver recipients have acceptable survival rates, and EDC is able to increase the access to liver transplantation.

The four patients – three adults and one child – who received organs from deceased donors are doing well and enjoying excellent liver function, Renz said.

"Their chances of even short-term survival were only minimal and the pediatric recipient underwent the transplant procedure in light of massive gastrointestinal bleeding due to his failing native liver," Gruessner said.

Within the next few months, the UMC Liver Transplant Program will begin to perform live-donor liver transplants. In this case, a person who is exceptionally healthy, and who usually is a relative, has about 60 percent of his/her liver removed, which then is given to the recipient. The liver regenerates in both the donor and recipient.

UMC is a private, not-for-profit hospital affiliated with the UA. Established in 1971, UMC is Arizona's only academic medical center. It also is the only hospital offering transplants to children in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.