PITTSBURGH, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Allegheny General Hospital (AGH) has received approval from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to move forward with plans to establish an adult liver transplantation program in conjunction with the liver transplantation team at the Department of Veterans Affairs VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) in Oakland.
According to Mark Roh, M.D., chairman of AGH’s Department of Surgery, a liver transplantation program at AGH will further enhance the city’s reputation as a leading center for organ transplantation.
“Given the success of AGH’s heart, kidney and pancreas transplant programs over the past two decades and the comprehensive hepatic disease program that we already offer, liver transplantation is a natural evolution of our clinical services that will afford liver transplant candidates a vital, new choice for their care, particularly those who currently are referred out-of-state for evaluation and surgery,” Roh said.
“Though our program will be new to the region, it will offer patients access to an experienced, talented surgical team that will provide the highest quality in patient care,” Roh said.
Collaboration with the VAPHS allows AGH to initiate its liver transplant program in a cost-effective manner by utilizing existing expertise and resources in the city, said Connie Cibrone, AGH president and chief executive officer. In a similar arrangement, AGH’s renal transplant surgeons were selected to oversee kidney transplantation at the VAPHS in 2004.
For more than a year, Jose Oliva, M.D., an AGH transplant hepatologist, has helped evaluate transplant candidates at the VAPHS’ liver transplant clinic.
The AGH liver transplantation program will be lead by Thomas Cacciarelli, M.D., an internationally recognized transplant surgeon who also serves as director of the VAPHS’ Transplant Program. An assistant professor of surgery at the UPMC Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute from 1997 to 2003, Cacciarelli assumed leadership of the VAPHS liver program in 2002.
Experienced in both living and cadaveric liver transplantation surgery, Cacciarelli completed post-graduate fellowships in liver transplantation at both the Starzl Institute and the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific publications in the fields of renal and liver transplantation.
According to UNOS, more than 17,000 people in the U.S. are on the waiting list for liver transplantation, including approximately 2,537 people combined from the region that includes the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. UNOS data also shows that the demand for liver transplantation has been steadily increasing over the past five years.
The number of adult liver transplants performed in Pittsburgh in 2004 compares closely with that of the state’s eastern Philadelphia region, at 204 and 195 respectively. Philadelphia is home to four adult liver transplant programs.
In 2004, a total of 144 liver transplants were performed in Pittsburgh on patients living within the 48 county tri-state service area of AGH.
Such scenarios are difficult for liver transplant candidates considering the acuity of their illness, the need for comprehensive follow-up care and the considerable cost and inconvenience to patients and their families, said Mary Ann Palumbi, administrative director of AGH’s Division of Transplantation.
“Lack of access to existing local programs requires that a significant number of liver transplant patients in our region endure the hardship of seeking care in another state,” said Palumbi. “We believe that for these patients alone there is need for a new program in Pittsburgh and we are thrilled to offer that service at AGH through a partnership with highly skilled and experienced liver transplant specialists.”
Paul Lebovitz, M.D., director of both the AGH Division of Gastroenterology and the hospital’s Center for Digestive Health, said that adding liver transplantation to the spectrum of advanced therapies for hepatic disease offered at the hospital is an important step forward.
“AGH’s program for the treatment of liver disease is among the most sophisticated in the country. To date, however, we have offered patients with liver disease everything short of transplantation. There are patients in this region who are unable or unwilling to travel to another city for the purposes of liver transplantation, people whose lives are shortened by lack of access to an alternative transplant program in Pittsburgh. This new program will open its arms to those individuals,” Lebovitz said.
Under the direction of renal transplant specialist Dai Nghiem, M.D., and cardiothoracic surgeon George Magovern, M.D., Allegheny General’s transplant program was officially launched in 1987.
The many milestones of innovation in the field of transplantation by AGH surgeons include the world’s second lung transplant in 1963, the state’s second heart transplant in 1969, the region’s first kidney transplant from an unrelated living donor in 1988, the region’s first bilateral adult kidney transplant in 1997 and the first laparoscopic kidney extraction from a live donor in 1998.
Allegheny General Hospital
CONTACT: Dan Laurent, +1-412-359-8602, for Allegheny General Hospital
