Liver Transplant

Performing more liver transplants than anyone else in North Texas for three years in a row, UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Liver Transplant Program continues to experience unprecedented growth while maintaining exceptional patient outcomes.

Through our transplant network located throughout Texas, we make liver transplantation more accessible for people living in El Paso, Lubbock, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Our transplant operations take place at Clements University Hospital, which boasts one of the country’s shortest lengths of stay after surgery.

Highlights of Our Liver Transplant Program

• UT Southwestern’s experienced liver transplant team uses state-of-the-art techniques and technologies to help patients in need of a liver transplant.
• Our team performed 104 transplants in 2022, while maintaining the highest one-year survival rate in North Texas.
• Our integrated, multidisciplinary team of experts works together to provide an unparalleled level of seamless, patient-focused care.
• Our expertise allows us to treat even the most complex cases and to make liver transplants available to more patients through our living-donor liver program.
• Working closely with other transplant teams at UT Southwestern, we’re able to perform multi-organ transplants, such as combined heart-liver or lung-liver transplants.
• We are one of only a few centers to offer combined liver transplant and sleeve gastrectomy for obese patients in need of a liver transplant.
• Since 1998, UT Southwestern has been the home of the Acute Liver Failure Study Group – led by William Lee, M.D. ­– which gathers important information about the rare disease.
• We offer an expedited transfer and evaluation process for patients with both acute liver failure and acute-on-chronic liver failure.
• Convenient satellite clinics in Lubbock, El Paso, and Fort Worth, along with the expanded use of telemedicine, allow us to deliver transplant care for patients throughout Texas, bringing our expertise closer to patients’ homes.
• Our team members work together to provide ongoing medical management and simplify every step of the process – from support for patients awaiting liver transplants to comprehensive outpatient treatment of transplant recipients.
• Our joint multidisciplinary clinic with UT Southwestern’s Simmons Cancer Center allows us to provide transplantation for patients with liver cancer who cannot undergo surgical resection.
• We treat advanced tumors, such as hepatocellular carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, and unresectable colorectal metastases to the liver.
• As an academic medical center, we participate in clinical trials and other leading-edge research. We’re currently evaluating new technologies to treat liver disease and transplant patients, and we’re investigating novel ways to increase the number of healthy donor livers.

Meet Our Liver Transplant Team

UT Southwestern’s Liver Transplant Program is made up of a team of skilled surgeons, hepatologists (liver doctors), intensive care doctors, infectious disease doctors, endocrinologists, imaging experts, nurses, transplant coordinators, social workers, psychologists, dietitians, pharmacists, financial coordinators, and other specialists who work side by side. Our team’s expertise enables us to deliver comprehensive, integrated care that helps patients achieve the best possible outcomes.