Baylor Health Care System

Surgeons on the medical staff at Baylor have performed more than 3,000 liver transplants, one of the few transplant centers in the country to reach this milestone. Baylor also places in the top five percent of U.S. adult liver transplant centers with one-year patient and graft survival outcomes higher than expected as determined by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

While liver transplantation becomes increasingly sophisticated, some of the most promising therapies for liver diseases may allow patients to keep the organs they were born with. These include established and new anti-viral therapies like protease and polymerase inhibitors, immune modulators and anti-fibrotic agents. As drugs and disease management improve, the number of patients requiring transplants will begin to decline.

Liver cancer is becoming more common worldwide. In addition to transplantation as a treatment options, Baylor now offers several other surgical techniques to help these patients. They include minimally invasive laparoscopic resection of part of the liver, radiofrequency (thermal) ablation, which is a selective treatment that destroys diseased tissue only; sphere infusion, the implanting of micro glass beads into the arteries feeding the liver; and Cyberknife™, which is advanced therapy that allows surgeons to track and radiate tumor sites with pinpoint precision.