Newswise — LOS ANGELES (Sept. 18, 2012) – In 2011, 90 percent of Cedars-Sinai liver transplant patients reached the one-year post-surgery milestone, giving the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center the highest one-year liver transplant survival rate in Los Angeles County.
The data also show that the survival rate for Cedars-Sinai liver transplant patients exceeds the national average of 88.5 percent. The statistics are compiled by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, a nonprofit organization administered by the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation, which designs and carries out rigorous scientific analyses of data for the transplant community.
“Our program is focused on giving our patients, many of whom are among the most severely ill, the best chance for a new start in life,” said Steven Colquhoun, MD, director of Liver Transplantation. “That focus is why our survival rates consistently, over several years, have out-performed the national average. Achieving a 90 percent one-year survival rate is wonderful but our goal is to give our patients a 100 percent survival rate.” Andrew S. Klein, MD, MBA, liver surgeon, director of the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center and the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair of Surgery and Transplant Medicine, said, "Cedars-Sinai has made transplantation medicine an institutional priority. The collaborative efforts of more than 300 doctors, scientists and staff within our Comprehensive Transplant Center have saved lives and improved the quality of life for a rapidly growing number of patients. As a physician, every time I witness a patient regain health after receiving a new heart, liver, kidney, pancreas or lung, I know how fortunate I am to be part of this transformative process.”
Throughout the U.S., there are more than 100,000 people on the National Organ Transplant Waiting List, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit agency that oversees the national organ transplant system. More than 400 Cedars-Sinai patients are on the waiting list for a liver and more than 20,000 patients are listed at California transplant centers. Because there are insufficient donated organs to meet the need,18 people die each day in the U.S. while awaiting organ transplants; a new name is added to the national waiting list every 13 minutes. “Organs for transplantation are such a precious resource that it is imperative that all of us – doctors and patients – do everything possible to maximize transplant success,” Klein said.
For information on how you can sign up as an organ donor, visit the Cedars-Sinai organ donation webpage.
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