Vanderbilt University Medical Center Performs 1,000th Liver Transplant on Clarksville Woman

With urgency dictating a predawn start, a 12-member
team comprised of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and technicians
performed Vanderbilt University Medical Center's 1,000th liver
transplant on Sunday.

The patient for this historic five-hour procedure was Sharon Byrd, 54, a
retired postal worker from Clarksville, Tenn.

This milestone for Vanderbilt's Liver Transplant Program was achieved
less than 19 years since the program performed its first transplant in
February 1991. The program has averaged more than 80 transplants per
year during each of the past four years, and is on pace to perform more
than 100 transplants this year, so far transplanting 67 adults and five
children.

Formed in 1990 by Wright Pinson, M.D., Vanderbilt's deputy vice
chancellor for Health Affairs, senior associate dean for Clinical
Affairs and director of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, the Liver
Transplant Program has evolved into one of the nation's leading programs
in terms of both transplant volume and patient survival rates.

"I am proud and thrilled about our team reaching this milestone in the
program's history," Pinson said. "It is long way from the start of the
program in terms of time, experience, knowledge, surgical technique, and
immunosuppression. I can remember our team training in the laboratory
nearly 20 years ago. It is interesting that so many of our team has
endured to this day."

Surgeons transplanted the donor liver into Byrd via a carefully
choreographed process that has been refined over the years to
significantly reduce operative times. The healthy new liver was
transplanted from a Tennessee donor.

"This may be the one thousandth liver we've transplanted, but in terms
of the donors, they are all equally important to us," said J. Kelly
Wright Jr., M.D., surgical director for the Liver Transplant Program and
chief of the Division of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver
Transplantation.

Wright said the milestone is a reflection of the continued support the
Liver Transplant Program has received from the Medical Center, the
efforts of its dedicated faculty and staff and the trust of referring
physicians to send patients to Vanderbilt.

"It's a wonderful experience to be able to continue to be able to do
this on a regular basis," he said.

It was in the very same operating room 19 years ago that Vanderbilt's
first liver transplant took place.

"We've tried to maintain things on an even keel, with steady, measured
adjustments as we've progressed through new technology and new
information that has let us refine our techniques," Wright said. "We
have had excellent luck at this institution with steady support of staff
who are dedicated and space given to us to do this work, as we sometimes
interrupt the flow of scheduled surgeries."

Wright said over the years Vanderbilt's surgeons have learned to
streamline the process of liver transplantation though the
implementation of new surgical techniques and the use of new
instrumentation. In earlier years liver transplantation was more
resource-intensive. Operations typically lasted eight to 10 hours. In
the early 1990s patients typically spent 14 days in hospital
post-transplant versus a typical stay of four or five days now.

"Our program appears to be growing. We have new staff who are young and
eager, we have very good ongoing senior staff and we have a good network
of patient referrals," he said.

"So the growth of our program is really tied to donor organ
availability. How many transplants we do is really totally dependent on
how many healthy organs we can get to put into those patients who are
waiting. We have many more patients waiting on our list than we have
available organs. The answer to further growth for all of our transplant
programs lies with getting more people to sign their organ donor cards
and getting more families of loves ones to donate organs," Wright said.

Byrd's medical management pre- and post-transplant has been provided by
Joseph Awad, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and Pharmacology.

The team for the 1,000th liver transplant included: Wright; Burnett
"Beau" Kelly Jr., M.D., assistant professor of Surgery and surgical
director of Pediatric Liver Transplantation; Derek Moore, M.D.,
assistant professor of Surgery; William Beck, M.D., resident L-1 in
General Surgery; William Furman, M.D., professor and vice chair for
clinical affairs in the Department of Anesthesiology; Robert Isaak,
D.O., resident CA-2 in Anesthesiology; Josh French, technician,
Anesthesiology; Karen Ferris, R.N.; Lance Powell, nurse extern; Graham
Pollock, VUSM-IV; Lupe Ramirez, surgical technologist and Amber Wallace,
surgical technologist.