Vim & Vigor - Winter 2017 - University of Virginia - 53

BEING OVERWEIGHT
NO LONGER
A ROADBLOCK
TO TRANSPLANT
Many people are being denied access to kidney
transplantation because they're overweight. "This
is because these patients have a very high rate of
surgical complications and wound complications,"
says José Oberholzer, MD, director of the UVA
Health System Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center
and pioneer in robotic surgery. Before joining UVA
in March, Oberholzer was a transplant surgeon in
Chicago, where he successfully performed kidney
transplants on overweight patients. "By doing kidney
transplant through a very small incision using robotic
surgery, we were able to prevent complications and
achieve much better outcomes," he says.

WEBSITE

You Can Save a Life
You can even save several. Sign up to donate your organs and
tissue once you're deceased. Living kidney and liver donations
are also possible because humans have two kidneys but do
fine with one. The human liver also comes with a lot of redundancies and has the unusual ability to grow back to its normal
size after a section is removed. To find out about becoming an
organ donor, go to uvahealth.com/donor.

1 Donation = 2 Lives Transformed
Two people received a lifesaving liver, and it only took one
donated organ. Meet the child who received a part at
uvahealth.com/connor.

A 13-year-old Norfolk girl becomes first child to
receive a liver in a unique partnership between
UVA Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital
of Pittsburgh of UPMC (which performs more
childhood transplants than any other center in
the nation). With this collaboration, Virginia
children awaiting a liver transplant can join the
organ wait lists at both hospitals. Pittsburgh
surgeons come to Charlottesville to perform the
surgery alongside UVA surgeons.

2015
UVA is honored for participating in the
nation's largest kidney transplant chain
(also known as a paired donor exchange)
that enabled 35 patients to receive a kidney
transplant. In a paired donor exchange, living
kidney donors who wish to donate to a loved
one-but aren't matches for their loved
one-are paired with a different patient and
increase the chances of finding a suitable
kidney for their loved one.

2016

TODAY

Transplantation is the standard of
care for many diseases, such as heart
failure and diabetes, as well as lung,
liver and kidney diseases.
"Even in the year 2017, some people think transplantation is bizarre and
done very rarely, but the truth is the
list of diseases that can benefit keeps
growing," says José Oberholzer, MD,
director of the UVA Health System
Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center
(uvahealth.com/transplant) and
an expert in liver, kidney, pancreas
and small bowel transplants, as well as
transplants in people with diabetes.
Oberholzer adds, "The outcomes from
an organ transplant are amazingly
good. Most people would not recognize a transplant patient. A few years
ago, a snowboarder named Chris Klug
received a liver transplant as a treatment for liver disease. He went on to
win an Olympic bronze medal after
receiving a transplant."
TIMELINE SOURCE: UVA Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

W INT E R 2 01 7

http://www.uvahealth.com/donor http://www.uvahealth.com/connor http://www.uvahealth.com/transplant

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