Helen S. Te, MD, discusses advances in the field of Non-Alcohol Fatty Liver Disease treatment
HELEN TE: Being the medical director of liver transplantation, certainly liver transplant is always a rapidly evolving field. One of the things that we probably have been good in is trying to push the envelope as far as we can for the benefit of the patient. So sometimes there are patients that have been turned down at other centers because of certain problems that are considered to be hurdles for them to receive liver transplantation. We here at the University of Chicago would look at these cases differently with a different eye and consider other options that may allow the patient to become candidates. So, for example, we have been one of the most experienced in performing combined liver transplantations for heart, liver, and kidney transplants, for example. So most of these patients would be turned down at other places, because their heart is not strong enough to allow them to go through transplantation of the liver safely. But here we take an approach where we actually combine both heart and liver transplant and provide the patient with another chance of survival.
