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The year of 2023 registered a record year for liver transplants in children at Schneider Children's Medical Center: Over the past year, 24 liver transplants were conducted in infants, children and adolescents, who needed the transplant to save their lives.
The youngest recipient was a 6-month-old infant, while the oldest was a 16-year-old youth. Liver transplants in children are considered among the most complex in the field of medicine.
Twelve of the transplants were performed following donation of a liver lobe from a family member of the recipient, two were performed following altruistic donations, and another ten were performed following donations from cadavers, two of which were donations from families of fallen soldiers who were killed in the war in Gaza.
In order to conduct liver transplantations, which are considered to be complex in any event and are even more so when the recipients are small children, special readiness of hospital teams is called for. Teams include pediatric organ transplant surgeons, ultrasound technicians, gastroenterologists, anesthetists, surgical nurses, intensivists and more, all of whom are highly experienced in the field. The liver transplant arena is headed by Dr. Michael Gurevitz, assisted by multidisciplinary professionals both before and after the operation. Post-surgical care is conducted in the Department of Pediatrics C.
Schneider Children's conducts the majority of organ transplants in children in Israel and is the only hospital perform pediatric liver transplants, and among the few children's hospitals in the world able to perform a series of transplant operations at the same time. Since its inception, Schneider Children's has conducted more than 700 transplants of heart, lung, liver and kidney in children, at a rate of success on par with leading medical institutions in the world.