Mayo Clinic Reaches Milestone: 50th Living Donor Liver Transplant

Monday, June 20, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Liver Transplant Program at Mayo Clinic in Arizona achieved a significant milestone last week when surgeons performed the 50th living donor liver transplant since the program began in April 2001. In such a procedure, a healthy person donates 60 or more percent of his or her liver to a relative or close friend in critical need of a liver transplant. Remarkably, the livers of both the donor and the recipient regenerate to their normal size within weeks. (The liver is the body's only internal organ that regenerates to its original size.)

The 50th living donor procedure took place at Mayo Clinic Hospital in northeast Phoenix on Thursday, June 16, when a 42-year-old Benson, Ariz., man, Wayne Perales, donated part of his liver to his cousin from Needles, Calif.

The recipient, 49-year-old Charles "Chuck" Telles, an engineer for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, has suffered from hepatitis C and liver cirrhosis for a number of years. Telles said that his cousin, Wayne, who is "more like a brother" to him, insisted he be tested to be his donor and "pretty much would not take no for an answer."

Perales in turn describes Telles as a "great, giving person," adding he would not hesitate to donate a portion of his liver. "I want Chuck to get his life back," he says. Perales, who admits to an "irrational fear of needles," said that his three children — Kevin, 18, and Sabrina and Ryan, 16 — are "on board" with the concept of their father undergoing major surgery to help Telles.

Both patients were reported to be recovering well following the combined nine-plus hours of surgeries. The transplant surgical team was led by Drs. David Mulligan and Adyr Moss, the Mayo surgeons who have performed all of the living donor liver transplants since the inception of the program in 2001. Qualifying to be a living donor for a liver transplant requires comprehensive medical and psychological testing, because, according to Dr. David Douglas, medical director, liver transplantation at Mayo Clinic, "We are asking a healthy person who does not require surgery to submit to a very serious procedure and a recovery period." As a result of Mayo's rigorous evaluation process, 50 percent of potential donors end up not qualifying to undergo the surgery.

The advantage of living donor liver transplantation is that the recipient does not spend time on a waiting list and that the surgery can be scheduled when both patients are in optimal health, contributing to a more favorable outcome. Importantly, the recipient must be healthy enough to withstand the surgery.

Telles, the father of two, said his hometown of Needles held a benefit golf tournament to help raise money for his expenses, and that 600 people attended. His wife, Donna, a pharmacy technician, agreed to be his caregiver as he recuperates from the transplant, along with his daughter, Robyn, 20, who is taking a break from college to help care for her dad. Son Rusty, 23, Flagstaff, was among the several family members who turned out in force on Thursday to wish Telles well, pre-surgery.

Perales is a field support manager who does work at the Fort Huachuca U.S. Army installation near Sierra Vista, Ariz.

Mayo Clinic ranks number one in Arizona and seventh in the nation for living donor liver transplantation. The Mayo liver transplant program overall, including the three Mayo sites - Arizona, Minnesota and Florida - is the largest provider of liver transplants in the U.S. Mayo's first living donor liver transplant took place in April 2001, when a 24-year-old Phoenix man, Ryan Winklepleck, donated part of his liver to his 30-year-old brother, Tim, from Glendale. Ryan was asked to carry the Olympic torch through Yuma. Ariz., in January 2002 as part of the 2002 Winter Olympics - all in honor of his gift to his brother.

Adult-to-adult living donor liver transplants are now growing at a greater increase than are liver transplants completed in the more traditional manner, using deceased donor livers. This is because the number of patients awaiting transplantation greatly exceeds the supply of deceased donor organs. More than 17,000 people currently are on the waiting list for a liver in the U.S., yet fewer than 6,000 deceased donor livers became available for transplantation in 2004.

Arizona residents can now register online to be an organ donor - allowing them to make an informed and legal decision to donate. The information entered is confidential and can only be accessed by Donor Network of Arizona.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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