Liver Disease and Transplantation
Liver Disease and Transplantation
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The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation (CLDT) offers adults and children with liver disease the seamless integration of medical, surgical, and radiologic expertise. Our center has cared for thousands of patients with liver disease and liver cancer.
Founded in 1998, the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation is one of the first liver programs built as a multidisciplinary unit. We have a legacy of close collaboration among specialists, including hepatologists, gastroenterologists, hepatobiliary surgeons, diagnostic and pathology experts, advanced-care nurses, social workers, and patient support staff.
Liver Disease Services We Provide
We offer a full spectrum of services to patients suffering from all forms of liver disease, including walk-in office consultations, antiviral treatment for Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B, and liver transplantation.
Clinical innovation and scientific progress are at the core of our center's mission. Liver transplant procedures at the CLDT take advantage of the most sophisticated medical knowledge and surgical technology available. We offer novel treatments for patients with liver cancer and cancers of the bile duct, or cancers that started elsewhere in the body and spread to the liver. Our patients have access to treatments that may not be available at other centers.
Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplantation
Most of the intestinal and multivisceral transplantations (including more than one organ) performed worldwide each year take place in the United States. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center is among the few US transplantation centers with the expertise to offer this rare service.
Intestinal grafts are classified as one of the following types:
- Isolated intestinal transplantation for patients with intestinal failure but who have a functioning liver
- Combined liver and intestinal transplantation for patients with liver and intestinal failure but normal stomach and pancreas
- Multivisceral transplantation, including the stomach, liver, pancreas, and intestine
Because the rejection of transplanted tissues is a serious risk, intestinal transplantation had largely been reserved for life-threatening conditions where a patient was entirely dependent on intravenous feeding or experiencing liver failure. As advances in surgical technique, immunosuppressant drugs, and post-operative monitoring improved survival rates, earlier transplantation (before liver failure) has become a viable option.
Patients with short bowel syndrome should be evaluated at the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation as early as possible before the development of liver failure.
Conditions We Treat
We evaluate patients who have been referred for a range of conditions, including:
- Short bowel syndrome caused by mesenteric vascular thrombosis
- Crohn’s disease
- Trauma
- Volvulus
- Functional disorders, such as chronic intestinal pseudoobstruction
- Multiple or extensive desmoid tumors
- Gardener’s syndrome
Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplantation Services We Provide
Our specialized team is skilled in providing a range of services, including leading-edge therapies, such as:
- Autotransplantation for ex vivo tumor resection: Columbia transplant surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian have established a new method of performing ex vivo tumor resection for tumors involving the blood vessels that supply major abdominal organs. Because of their challenging location, such tumors are considered inoperable by most centers. Autotransplantation lets surgeons remove the intestine, liver, or other abdominal organs as needed to access the tumor. After excising the tumor, they reconstruct the blood vessel then reimplant the patient’s native organs. Patients undergoing autotransplantation need no immunosuppressant medications following surgery, and outcomes have been excellent.
- Abdominal wall transplantation: This procedure is the reconstruction and closure of the abdominal compartment, which may be necessary after extensive abdominal resections, repeated laparotomies, tumor resection, wound infections, or enterocutaneous fistulae (an abnormal connection between the stomach or intestine and skin). Abdominal wall transplantation may also be required to close the abdomen after small-bowel and multivisceral transplantation. NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the few centers in the country with experience performing this novel technique.