Beaumont liver plan OK'd

Beaumont liver plan OK'd

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Beaumont liver plan OK'd
Royal Oak hospital is third in state to have a transplant program, and hopes to do procedures by late spring.
Sofia Kosmetatos / The Detroit News
Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak has received state approval to develop a new liver transplant program, the third in the state.

The program will offer traditional and live-donor liver transplantation services, the hospital said Monday. Traditional surgeries are done with organs from deceased people, while live-donor surgeries transplant a portion of a living donor's liver to an individual in need of a transplant.

Beaumont conducted a national search for a transplant surgeon, the results of which will be announced soon, said Dr. Charles Shanley, senior vice president and chairman of the department of surgery. The hospital will work on training staff for the more complicated surgeries in the coming months, and could begin performing transplants by late spring.

In Michigan, nearly 400 residents are waiting for a liver transplant, and Beaumont's program will help shrink that waiting list, Shanley said. "There is clearly a need."

Liver transplants are the second most common transplant procedure performed in the United States, next to kidney transplants, according to Beaumont. Nationally, 16,562 people are on waiting lists to receive a liver transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

"As Beaumont succeeds, all Michigan residents will benefit, just like with all our transplant centers" Gift of Life Michigan spokesman Tim Makinen said.

Liver transplants are expected to increase 15 percent in southeast Michigan by 2010, Shanley said, citing data from the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, because of the prevalence of diseases affecting the liver and kidneys.

The surgery, including recovery of the organ and first year care, costs an estimated $352,000, according to Gift of Life Michigan.

Henry Ford Hospital and the University of Michigan's University Hospital are the other two hospitals offering a liver transplant program in the state. Founded in 1985, U-M's program was the first in Michigan. It performed 71 transplants in 2007. Henry Ford's program, begun in 1989, performed 117 liver transplants last year.

Beaumont conservatively projects it will perform at least 12 transplants in the program's first year, and 37 to 40 in its second year.

Beaumont Royal Oak already has a kidney transplant center, which has been operating more than 20 years. The addition of the liver transplant program is part of Beaumont's strategic plan to become one of the top academic health centers in the United States, Shanley said, and should help attract additional researchers and doctors.

"This will be a boon regionally for us to have that kind of talent pool in association with the new medical school," he said, noting Beaumont Hospitals and Oakland University's partnership to open a privately funded medical school by fall 2010.

There are 127 liver transplant programs in the country, according to Gift of Life Michigan, a federally designated organ and tissue recovery organization that serves as the intermediary between donors, doctors and hospitals. Almost all transplants (96 percent) are done with organs from deceased donors. Beaumont said it hopes its focus on live donors will benefit patients who are waiting for a transplant but, because they are not deemed ill enough, may not be able to receive a liver under the current allocation system.

You can reach Sofia Kosmetatos at (313) 222-2401 or skosmetatos@detnews.com