Due to the success of liver transplantation, the number of patients waiting for a liver has increased dramatically during the past ten years. Unfortunately, the number of donors has not kept pace. Currently, there are approximately 17,450 people waiting for liver transplants in the United States, but only enough livers to perform about 5,300 transplants each year. Because of this organ shortage, more than 1,500 people die each year waiting for a liver transplant.

Why Northwestern Memorial

The Liver Transplant Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital has undertaken an innovative solution to help reduce the waiting time for our patients. Our Liver Transplant Program is one of the leaders in the country to offer adult-to-adult and adult-to-pediatric living donor liver transplantation.  Our own experience includes more than 100 living donor liver transplants since 1997. The living donor survival rate at Northwestern Memorial is 100 percent, and the recipient survival is excellent.

Northwestern Memorial is one of just nine centers in the country involved in a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study of living donor liver transplants.

Contact

If you have questions about living liver donations, please call 312-695-0870.

Location

The Kovler Organ Transplantation Center is location in Northwestern Memorial's Galter Pavilion:

675 N. St. Clair, Suite 17-200
Chicago, Illinois 60611