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Show E B Landers E2 B Weddings E3 The Daily Herald Sunday, April 20, 1997 rriromi ii iiiwiimi - is ilium n inmuii mi imn iiuwiini . t . j mm II"" in i urn lM M 1 :Ptftl If' "111 'I """" iniiiiiii ii im ij 11 w 4 k: ; I III I fl h Cd( ! w pi nwmim !' ' ll I j . it '? 4 JM , 3 . i - s i til ! , m . , r v-J- H 2f ?3 Li., Photo courtesy Martha Palacios nurse from Primary Children's Medical Center monitors the progress of Nicole Flores after her liver transplant at the hospital March 5. The infant suffered from a condition where the liver bile was trapped in the organ. She spent three months in PCMC's intensive care unit A life-savi- waiting for the transplant. Photo courtesy PCMC Rebecka Meyers, right, and Dr. John Sorenson perform a liver transplant on Nicole Flores at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City March 5. It was the first liver transplant on an infant in the Intermountain West. Dr. First transplant efforts Early 1900s using animal organs. All unsuccessful. First successful human transplant was in 1954 at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston where a kidney was transferred from one identical twin to another. It functioned normally for eight years. Almost 100,000 Kidneys kidney transplants have been performed in the U.S. with 30 percent of organs donated by recipients' relatives and 70 percent by unrelated donors at their deaths. First transplant in Hearts 1967 occurred at Groote Schur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. The patient lived 19 months. The longest survivor is doing well after 20 years; over 80 percent success rate after one year is common. First transplant was Livers done in 1967 at the University of Colorado in Denver. Patient lived 13 months. Seventy percent of patients now survive at least one year. Pancreas First transplant was in 1979 at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. This fairly new procedure allows the organ to be transplanted whole or as a segment. Heart-lun- g First transplant in 1981 at Stanford University Medical Center. More than 300 patients in U.S. have received these transplants. Lung Many advances are currently being made in isolated lung transplants. Success rate at certain centers is greater than 70 percent. The UNOS national patient waiting list for organ transplant contains over 49,000 registrations. On December 4, there were: 34,414 registrations for a kidney transplant. 7,329 registrations for a liver transplant. 321 registrations for a pancreas transplant. 63 registrations for a pancreas islet cell. 1 ,497 registrations for a kidney-pancretransplant. 83 registrations for an intestine transplant. 3,688 registrations for an heart transplant. 235 registrations for a heart-lun- g transplant. 2,304 registrations for a lung transplant. 49,934 TOTAL Numbers of Transplants Performed, January- - December 1995 as 918 kidney-pancre- transplants 10,892 kidney alone trans- plants (3,208 from living donors). 1 10 pancreas alone trans plants. 3,925 liver transplants. 2,361 heart transplants. trans68 heart-lun- g plants. 871 lung transplants. 19,145 TOTAL Based on UNOS Scientific Registry data as of November 12, 1996. Double kidney, double and kidney panlung, heart-lun- g creas transplants are counted as one transplant. By SHEILA SANCHEZ The Daily Herald . SALT LAKE CITY Primary Center Medical (PCMC) has performed its first liver transplant on an infant girl making it the second time its team of pediatric surgeons has successfully put its new program to the test. The hospital announced last August it would begin pediatric liver transplants in collaboration with LDS Hospital's liver transplant program, becoming the only place performing the surgeries in the Intermountain Children's ble to donate organs donated Meyers said. organs," ' Nicole was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 12 after doctors detected she was suffering from an infection due to fluids retained by her body and caused by the biliary atresia. The child's disease became so acute that she was transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit, the hospital for months waiting for a liver. Without this program her mother would have had to stay outside of Utah waiting." Cyndi Kawai, pediatric liver transplant coordinator at PCMC, said before Primary's began the program, families would have to travel to centers in Nebraska, Wisconsin and California. Although ld - ! West. Former Provoan Martha Palacios and her 1 year-old daughter Nicole Marie Flores are beneficiaries of the new medical technology available. The child, whose mother moved to Salt Lake City to be closer to the hospital, received her transplant March 5. "Z Nicole was suffering from biliary atresia, a condition caused when the ducts that carry bile from the liver to the intestine are destroyed. The bile accumulates in the liver and damages its tissue. The disease is most often treated by a liver transplant. The child waited for five months on a list to receive the liver. "It went very, very well." said Dr. Rebecca Meyers, the pediatric surgeon who performed the eight-hotransplant with the assistance of Drs. John Sorenson and LaGrand Belnap from LDS Hospital. "People need to understand that there are a lot of children like Nicole who wait a long, long time before they get a liver. We could get livers for our patients a lot sooner if everyone who was eligi came out kicking her arms and legs," Book said. "She came out with a low bilirubin level and very stable." She said the program is larger than the hospital's expectation. "We were thinking that the initial demand for livr er transplantation could be about six patients a year, and we have twice that many children on our waiting list. There appears to be a significant need in this area for this program," Book said. "I'm incredibly impressed at the talent -and skills of the surgeons involved and the meticulous man1- - " agement and the cooperation from other departments like anesthesia',' radiology, intensive care and infectious disease, to name a few." PCMC is the specialty-referrhospital for children within a area, including all of Utah and much of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. In August, the hospital performed its first liver transplant on a boy. The procedure was also a success. "I feel very grateful to God for this miracle in my life," said ' Nicole's mother. Martha Palacios! '' "I especially feel a tremendous debt to the donating parents'. whose child gave Nicole life. To ' those incredible people, whose generosity changed our lives, I feel appreciation beyond words can explain. They will forever be in my heart and in my prayers." Joseph R. Horton. PCMC's administrator and chief executive officer, said the liver transplant program was started after at least five years of discussion and -- al 400.000-square-mi- m jM ... Photo courtesy Sheila Sanchez Linda Book and Martha Palacios pose with Palacios' daughter Nicole at her first birthday party. The party took place before Nicole received a liver transplant so her coloring is more yellow than it is now that the transplant has been successful. Dr. ur where only severely ill children are admitted. "This program is vital to the care of these children," Meyers said. "If we didn't have this program here, children would have to go outside of Utah to have their transplants and it's very disruptive to their family life. Nicole was in each is a good center, they are too far away from home for most people. Dr. Linda Book, medical director for PCMC's Pediatric Liver Transplantation Program, said Nicole's transplant was a success. "She went into surgery very sleepy, almost in a coma, and she le -- ules on who aefs a fransplan t may be changing By SHEILA SANCHEZ The Daily Herald SALT LAKE CITY Controversary surrounds this year's National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week which begins today. Proposed changes in the rules that govern liver transplants have raised concerns among doctors, patients and government officials. With thousands of people in the country organs and waiting for desperately-neede- d so few available to save their lives, those who receive the gifts are often of their dissuffering from the ease. Facing the critical dilemma, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sponsored a hearing recently to decide whether rules for the allocation of the organs are unfair. The United Network for Organ Sharit agency under ing (UNOS), a federal contract to coordinate liver transplants, had proposed giving the organs to those healthy enough to survive the transill plants. That would mean chronically liver patients would be removed from priority or level one status, a term used to categorize their critical need for organ donation. "The guidelines for organ allocation are constantly being reviewed for fairness, but it's a real difficult thing to do," said Cyndi life-savi- end-stag- es non-prof- merit when considering the urgency to Kawai, pediatric liver transplant coordinator at Salt Lake City's Primary Children's make more organs available to people who Medical Center (PCMC). "Because there's suddenly get sick with liver failure and who can't wait for long periods of time. such a shortage of organs, all the physiAlex McDonald, director of education cians involved in UNOS are trying to do Intermountain d their best to allocate the organs in a fair for the Salt Lake Organ Recovery System (IORS). said way." All pediatric patients can reach status whatever the outcome of the new propos-- , one now, if needed. Under the controverr, al, his agency will continue to recover not chronib'rcans when families have decided to give sial proposal only acutely-il- l, thts gift of life." cally ill, older liver transplant patients for .'. Kally Heslop, a spokeswoman would reach status one because their outit come is better, Kawai explained. TypiIORS, a agency operating under tiscally, a patient who's acutely ill is suffer-- , federal guidelines to provide organ and sue procurement and education, said there ing from a disease which progresses faster putting his or her life at a higher are;j50,000 people in the country waiting risk. A patient who's chronically ill jsj Jfqf transplants. 'j "the majority of people waiting need suffering from a disease that is more long-terkidneys and livers, while the rest need "If they (acutely ill patients) get a liver pancreas, intestines, hearts and lungs. In in time, their outcome after transplant is Utah, an estimated 200 people, are waiting better than a chronically ill patient. That's for organs. UNOS policies allow patients to be listpart of how UNOS is trying to best use the limited resources we have; but even this ed with more than one transplant center in change is under continued discussion," she the country, so the number may be greater said. than the actual number of patients, Heslop Dr. Linda Book, pediatric gastroen-terologisaid. at PCMC and medical director IORS, covering a 2.5 million populafor the hospital's new Pediatric Liver tion base in Utah, southeastern Idaho and Transplantation Program, said the demand western Wyoming, was organized in for organs far exceeds the supply in the November of 1987. The agency is staffed e procurement coordinators country, with the disparity "getting greater by and greater every year." available 24 hours a day to evaluate potenOf the UNOS proposal, Book said it has tial donors, obtain consent from donors' City-base- non-prof- J st full-tim- next of kin, assist with donor maintenance, assist in recovering, preserving and placing organs, coordinating multi-orga- n donation locally and nationally and provide public and professional education. "Utah is offering most of the transplantation programs found elsewhere in the h heart country, but we have a four that program encompasses hospitals," Heslop said, referring to the heart transplant consortium between LDS Hospital, the University of Utah Medical Center, Primary Children's Medical Center and the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Salt Lake City. "It's extremely successful. A heart transplant recipient who's a year out has more than a 90 percent success rate." she said. LDS Hospital has been offering liver transplants for 10 years and it also offers kidney and pancreas transplants. The University of Utah Medical Center offers heart, kidney and lung transplants. The Veteran's Administration Hospital is one of two designated VA hospitals in the country where heart transplants are performed; and Primary Children's Medical Center has been offering a program for more than five years and a transplant program for two years. recipHeslop, herself a ient, underwent the operation at the University of Utah Medical Center. "It's been top-notc- heart-transpla- nt bone-marro- w heart-transpla- eight years and I'm very dedicated to this cause. I have been very fortunate to live in Utah because we have such great transplant programs and such excellent physicians." Book said the need for organ donation becomes more critical when considering that 25 to 30 percent of those waiting for a liver transplant will die. "Even if we say that we're doing well, because people are donating, if we're only getting a third or half of those potential donors, then it's not enough," she said. "We need more awareness, but it's difficult to consider these issues when we have lost a loved one. We need to get educated about it ahead of time." Kawai said there will soon be 14 chil-- . dren on Primary Children's waiting list for a liver transplant. y . IORS encourages families to talk, about organ and tissue donation and to discuss their feelings openly. Donation advocates, however, recommend those ' interested sign and carry in their wallet a ' donor card. Medical experts say everyone's help is ' needed to resolve the donor shortage and that the best way to assure more organs and tissue are available is to talk about 'it with loved ones. For more information on how to receive a donor card, contact the IORS at ', , |