NewYork-Presbyterian. The University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell.

Transplantation

Liver Transplant

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The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a multidisciplinary program dedicated to the treatment of adults and children with all stages of liver disease. We provide comprehensive services, including diagnostic testing, medical treatment, surgery, transplantation, and support.

Organ Transplant
Program brochure
(click image to
open PDF)

Transplantation services are available for patients with advanced liver disease in whom all other efforts fail. The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation is one of very few institutions to provide transplantation to patients who are co-infected with hepatitis C or HIV, and to patients with cancer of the bile ducts.

Types of Liver Transplants

There are two main types of liver transplantation:

Deceased Donor Transplants

Traditionally the most common type of transplantation, deceased donor transplants use a liver that becomes available when a person dies and his or her family donates the organ. Patients who need a deceased donor organ are registered with the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which maintains the national database of all patients waiting for a deceased donor organ.

Waiting times for a deceased donor liver vary depending on the patient's severity of illness, blood type, and overall demand. Because the liver is able to regenerate, surgeons can divide a deceased donor organ and transplant each half into a different recipient. Sometimes called "split-liver" transplantation, this resourceful allocation of scarce donor organs enables more patients to receive transplants.

Liver transplant
outcomes at NYP
and other area
hospitals (click
image to open PDF)

Living Donor Liver Transplants

During living donor liver transplantation, surgeons remove a portion of a healthy living person's liver for transplantation into a recipient. This procedure is made possible by the liver's unique ability to regenerate: the partial liver in both the donor and recipient grow and remodel to form complete, functioning organs.

The Living Donor Liver Transplant Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is one of the largest and most experienced living donor liver programs in North America, and the only one offering laparoscopic removal of donor liver tissue in select patients.

Clinical Innovation

Information Television's (ITV) "Innovations in Liver
Transplantation" features several doctors
from NewYork-Presbyterian. View

The Center is a national leader in the study of liver disease treatment and transplantation. We have a deep commitment to clinical innovation, which is made possible by a dynamic partnership between our physicians and academic researchers. Many of the Center's studies address hepatitis C, which is the leading indication for transplantation and a major cause of organ failure after transplantation.

Patients may receive services at the location that is most convenient for them:

• NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center (downtown campus, adults)
• NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center (uptown campus, adults)
• NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital (uptown campus, pediatrics)

Team Care

The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation multidisciplinary team includes:

(click to enlarge)

• hepatologists
• gastroenterologists
• hepatobiliary surgeons
• diagnostic and pathology experts
• advanced practice nurses
• transplant coordinators
• psychiatrists
• nutritionists
• research coordinators

Together, these specialists assess patients' problems, diagnose liver diseases, and provide the latest medical and surgical treatment options available. Many are involved in clinical research and the development of innovative medical and surgical therapies.

Who We Treat

The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation treats patients with liver diseases such as:

• acute liver failure
• biliary atresia
• cholangiocarcinoma
• cystic fibrosis
• drug-induced liver failure
• hemochromatosis
• hepatitis B and C
• hepatoblastoma
• liver tumors
• primary sclerosing cholangitis
• Wilson's disease