Liver Transplant One-Year Survival Rate at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix Highest in U.S.

Mayo Clinic’s campus in Phoenix, Arizona, has been identified as having the highest one-year patient survival rate in the U.S. for adult liver transplantation.  The statistics include both deceased and living-donor liver transplants.

These statistics indicate that 98.52 percent of all patients are living one year following their liver transplant – best in the nation. This compares with the national average of 90.83 percent.

Mayo also leads the nation in three-year living donor liver transplant patient and graft (the organ) survival. The one-year patient survival rate for living donor liver transplant is 100 percent, and the three-year patient survival is highest in the nation at 96.3 percent.

The statistics were released Dec. 16, 2014, by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR), a national database of statistics related to solid organ transplantation, and included transplants performed between July 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2013. While much of the information about transplant outcomes is used to shape organ allocation policies, the data also provides useful statistics for patients requiring liver transplantation.

The SRTR data report also conveys that Mayo’s wait-list mortality rate is 6.3 percent, statistically lower than expected compared with the national average of 17.2 percent – lower than any other any other adult liver transplant program in the country.

With campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota, Mayo Clinic has the highest volume of transplants in the U.S., and outcomes that are consistently among the best.  In addition to Mayo Clinic in Arizona having the best patient survival for liver transplantation in the U.S., there were only four liver programs in the country with patient survivals higher than expected. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Mayo Clinic in Arizona were two of those four programs.

Mayo Clinic’s campus in Phoenix was one of only three kidney transplant programs in the U.S. with patient survivals higher than expected, and the lung transplant program at Mayo Clinic in Florida was one of only two lung transplant programs in the country with higher than expected lung survivals.

Mayo Clinic is the largest transplant center in Arizona, having performed 384 solid organ transplants in 2013, including 21 hearts, 269 kidneys, 78 livers and 16 pancreas transplants.

Since 2001, Mayo Clinic’s campus in Arizona has performed more than 850 liver transplants, of which 142 were by living donation, making its living donor liver transplant program one of the largest in the Western U.S

Now celebrating its 15th year of doing liver transplants in Arizona, David Douglas, M.D., (GI ‘92) director of the Transplant Center, credits the program’s success on the quality, skill and experience of its integrated team of specialists, “resulting in excellent outcomes for both transplant recipients and donors,” he said.

Bashar Aqel, M.D., (GI-HL 01, GI ‘04) Medical Director of the Liver Transplant program, added, “Patients needing a liver transplant will look for a quality program where their surgery can be done in a timely manner and where they have the best outcomes. That combination is hard to achieve without the support of an outstanding transplant team.”

This information first appeared in a Mayo Clinic News Release on 12/23/2014.