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“I want to thank TGH for achieving this amazing procedure and giving me the opportunity to help my mom before it was too late,” said Derek Sanz.

“When he decided he wanted to be my living donor, it was a really hard choice for me because he’s my youngest son,” Patricia Sanz said. “But he never wavered. And I’m so grateful.”

According to the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 10,351 people in the United States are awaiting liver transplants as of May, including 393 patients in Florida.

But with only enough livers donated to perform about 5,000 transplants a year, Donate Life America said patients may wait months and even years before receiving a liver. Bbout 1,700 people die each year while awaiting a donation.

Liver disease is caused by a range of illnesses including cystic fibrosis, Wilson’s disease, Hepatitis C, cancer, primary sclerosing cholangitis, cirrhosis and hemochromatosis.

A patient is put on the waiting list for a liver when he or she has end-stage liver failure that cannot be controlled using other treatments such as dialysis or medications.

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At that point, the patient may experience chronic, life-restricting symptoms including jaundice, internal bleeding, a buildup of fluid in the abdomen and legs, confusion due to high levels of toxic substances in the body, dangerously high blood pressure and extreme fatigue.

The ability to save the lives of those with end-stage liver disease through living transplant donations from a relative whose liver has a much greater chance of being a match for the patient, rather than having patients wait for months or years for a match from a deceased donor, is a game changer, said Dr. Kiran Dhanireddy.

Dhanireddy is vice president and chief of the Tampa General Transplant Institute and surgical director of the Comprehensive Liver Disease and Transplant Center at the TGH Transplant Institute, who performed the recipient operation.

“The way I think about measuring the success of this is that we prevented Patty from having to go to the ICU and being on continuous dialysis and on medications to support her blood pressure and never had to suffer the risk of potentially dying before getting a transplant,” Dhanireddy said.

As one of the nation’s top 10 transplant centers, Tampa General Hospital is no stranger to life-saving transplant surgeries.

In the past 50 years, the hospital has performed more than 12,500 transplant surgeries, including about 7,500 kidney transplants, including its first living kidney donor transplant surgery in 1974. Additionally, TGH performs heart, lung, liver and pancreas transplants.

However, until now, all the liver transplants performed at the hospital have used livers from deceased donors.

Living donor transplants are much more complicated, said Dr. Ashish Singhal, director of living donor liver transplant, who performed Derek Sanz’ donor surgery.

“It’s a technically complex operation. A lot of work has been done in the last decade to reach this point,” Singhal said.

There’s always risks with surgery, so Singhal said the safety of the donor is a priority.

To perform this historic surgery at Tampa General, Singhal and Dhanireddy assembled a team of health professionals, including Dr. Diego Reino, an experienced Tampa General transplant surgeon who assisted Dhanireddy, and Dr. Vijay Subramanian, a liver transplant surgeon at Tampa General, who assisted Singhal.

During the donor operation, the right lobe of the liver is removed using a technique that preserves the blood supply from the hepatic artery, the portal vein, the bile duct and the right hepatic vein.

Meanwhile, the recipient’s diseased liver is completely removed and the donor’s right lobe is put in its place. Blood vessels and bile ducts are then connected to their appropriate counterparts.

After the portion of the liver is removed from the donor, the donor’s remaining liver regrows to near its full size and capacity within a couple of months after surgery and the transplanted portion of the liver grows and restores normal liver function in the donor recipient.

Dhanireddy said a living donation can drastically reduce the time and costs of waiting for a donor organ. A closer match is more likely to occur with a live donor, and surgery can be scheduled more quickly and easily.

“It most definitely can give very sick people an opportunity to experience improved health.”he said.

Research also has shown that recipients of organs from living donors have better outcomes than those who receive organs from deceased donors.

“Our living donor liver transplant program is a prime example of Tampa General continuing to drive innovation to deliver world-class health care,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General. “This program opens up additional access to patients in need of a liver transplant and has the potential to transform the lives of patients and their families in the Tampa Bay region, Florida and across the United States.”

“We’re hoping that by telling our story, people will realize they don’t have to be on a list maybe for two or three or more years. If they just know about it, and they can have family members tested, they may be able to go right to the top of the list,” Patricia Sanz said.

Tampa General Hospital opened its Comprehensive Liver Disease and Transplant Center began in 1987 and is now one of the busiest transplant centers in the country, with a record of more than 2,200 operations.

The high patient volumes reflect the uncommon and challenging hepatic (liver) diseases the TGH Transplant Institute treats compared to other hospitals. In addition, the time required for a transplant is historically shorter than national averages, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients data.

Transplants At Tampa General

In 2022, the TGH Transplant Institute performed 682 transplants, a 20 percent increase in the number of procedures over 2021. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the national rate of transplants grew by 3.7 percent in 2022 over 2021.

“As a leading and nationally recognized academic medical center, Tampa General continues to lead the state and the country in world-class transplantation care, “said Couris. “Our ability to continue to increase our transplant volume year after year is directly correlated to the exceptional level of care we continue to provide. Studies continue to show that the greater number of procedures performed — in this case, the number of transplants conducted at Tampa General — lead to increased proficiency. Better proficiency, in turn, means better quality and improved outcomes for our patients.”

In 2022, the TGH Transplant Institute ranked No. 1 in the state of Florida for living-donor kidney transplants, No. 1 in the state for pediatric kidney transplants and No. 3 in the nation for all kidney transplants. The academic medical center also ranked No. 7 in the nation for all liver transplants last year and performed more than 100 total heart and lung transplants.

“In our nearly 50-year history of performing organ transplantation, we have deeply embraced innovation,” said Dhanireddy. “This past year, we implemented new organ perfusion technology that has led to an increased usage of marginal donor organs and allowed us to travel farther to bring organs to our patients. As early adopters of machine perfusion technology, we are expanding access to transplantation for the sickest members of our community.”

Organ perfusion is technology that helps keep donor organs healthy prior to transplant.

Close to 20 percent of residents in Tampa General’s home county of Hillsborough are of Hispanic heritage. To help better serve Hispanic patients, Tampa General initiated a Hispanic Kidney Transplant program in 2022. The goal of the program is to help create a clear, compassionate and personalized process for Spanish-speaking patients and their families.

The TGH Transplant Institute has assembled a bilingual team comprised of surgeons, physicians, social workers, financial coordinators and support staff. The program begins with the transplant referral phase and continues through evaluation, transplant and post-transplant to ensure that Hispanic patients and their families feel as comfortable as possible. For more information, click here.

After performing its first transplant in 1974, in 1985 TGH became the first hospital in Florida to successfully perform a life-saving heart transplant. Today, the institute has completed more than 12,500 transplants.

“Tampa General had another record year for transplant volume due to the commitment of our team to the health of the sickest patients in our community,” Dhanireddy said.

Click here to learn more about the Tampa General Transplant Institute.

To become an organ donor, Florida residents can visit Donate Life Florida.

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