After Four-Year Hiatus:

UMC Once Again Performing Liver Transplant Surgery;

Tucson Man in Good Condition after Transplant Thursday

 

From:  Katie Riley, (520) 626-4828                                                                             Feb. 18, 2006

 

A 51-year old Tucson man received a donated liver Thursday, Feb. 16, at University Medical Center -- UMC’s first liver transplant since it re-activated its Liver Transplant Program after a four-year hiatus.  The patient, who does not wish to be identified, was listed in good condition Friday morning, when he was to be transferred from an Intensive Care Unit to a regular unit.

Between 1992 and 2002, UMC conducted 170 liver transplants but inactivated its transplant program in 2002 when it lost its liver surgeon.  Since then, Thomas Boyer, MD, of the Arizona Liver Institute at The University of Arizona, has continued to care for patients previously transplanted at UMC. Patients on the wait list were referred to other transplant centers.

 

Last summer the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) approved the re-activation of the UMC pediatric and adult Liver Transplant Program with the hiring of distinguished transplant surgeon Ernesto P. Molmenti, MD, PhD, MBA, who was recruited from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Dr. Molmenti is the author of The Atlas of Liver Transplantation (W.B. Saunders Company; 1st edition, July 15, 2002), recently translated into Chinese and Japanese.  

 

UMC began accepting patients to its liver wait list in December.  Late Wednesday, a cadaveric liver became available.  Dr. Molmenti, a professor of surgery and chief of abdominal transplantation at the UA College of Medicine, led the six-hour liver transplantation surgery.  He was assisted by Hugo Villar, MD, professor and interim head of the UA Department of Surgery.

 

“We are ecstatic to be able to once again offer liver transplantation at University Medical Center,” said UMC President and CEO Greg Pivirotto.  “We know it has been a long, difficult wait for many people with liver disease in Southern Arizona.”

 

UMC’s liver transplant program is the only transplant center in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico offering liver transplants to children.

 

Although this marks Dr. Molmenti’s first liver transplant at UMC, he has performed hundreds of them at Johns Hopkins, the University of Pittsburgh and at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

 

Since his arrival in Tucson in June, Dr. Molmenti has been transplanting kidneys at a record pace in partnership with nephrologist  Sam James, MD, medical director of UMC’s kidney transplant program.  Dr. Molmenti also specializes in surgery of the biliary tract, liver resections and the transplantation of the pancreas. Two patients are active on UMC’s wait list for a new pancreas.

 

 

 

Susan Guthrie
Associate Director, Public Affairs

University of Arizona, College of Medicine - Phoenix
4001 North Third Street, Suite 401
Phoenix, Arizona  85012
602-631-6555 (office) 480-241-7738 (cell)
sguthrie@email.arizona.edu

www.phoenix.arizona.edu

 

To read about the expansion of the UA College of Medicine in Phoenix go to http://www.phoenix.medicine.arizona.edu/About/News/Campus/