Liver Transplant Program

Our Expertise

At Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, we have one of the leading liver transplant programs in the country.

We have a history of excellence in liver transplants:

• Lahey’s Live Donor Adult Liver Transplant program is the largest in the country, with more than 380 surgeries performed to date.
• Our Live Donor Adult Liver Transplant Program was one of the first in the country to receive accreditation from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
• Our surgical team performed New England’s first successful liver transplant in July 1983.
• We performed the first domino transplant in the United States for familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy in 1992, and we have since maintained one of the highest volumes of such surgeries nationally.
• Our surgical team performed New England’s first (and 10th in the United States) Live Adult Donor Liver Transplant (LADLT) in December 1998.
• Our combined team of liver and kidney transplant surgeons performed the nation’s first combined live donor liver and kidney transplant in 1999.
• Our team performed the first successful totally robotic living donor hepatectomy in 2018 and we are the only center in the United States to offer this procedure.
• We have performed the greatest number of liver transplants in New England over the last three decades.

Individualized Care

At Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, you are more than a patient or case number. We recognize your individual needs and provide personalized attention. Once you are on the waiting list you can expect to be offered liver transplantation.

We also group your appointments and coordinate your care to save you time, so that you can see all of your specialists in one day.

The liver is the only internal organ capable of full regeneration because a portion as little as 30 percent can regrow into a full liver. This regenerative property makes live donor liver transplantation possible. During this procedure, you receive a portion of a donor’s liver. Both livers grow in size and return to normal function in a matter of weeks.

Options for Liver Transplantation

• A portion of a liver from a living donor. The liver is the only internal organ capable of full regeneration because a portion as little as 30 percent can regrow into the size of a full liver. This regenerative property makes live donor liver transplantation  possible. During this procedure, you receive a portion of a donor’s liver. Both livers grow in size and return to normal function in a matter of weeks.
• A liver from someone who is deceased.
• Liver from brain dead deceased donor. Irreversible and complete loss of brain and brain stem function has taken place such as from a stroke or traumatic brain injury. There is no brain activity, and brain activity will not return.
• Liver from donation after circulatory death (DCD). Retrieval of organs from a patient whose death is diagnosed and confirmed using cardio-respiratory criteria. For example- an unexpected cardiac arrest and the patient cannot be resuscitated or death which follows the planned withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments that have been decided no overall benefit to the critically ill patient.