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Fifty Ways to Love Your Liverby Ross Tomlin Tweaking the title of Paul Simon's hit "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover "is just one way the American Liver Foundation is getting people's attention on the seriousness of liver health. It boils down to simple economics: the supply of donated organs is not keeping pace with the demand for liver transplants. With more patients progressing to end-stage liver disease than ever before, the medical community is struggling to combat one of the country's most unheralded yet prevalent killers. Considering that more than five million Americans have hepatitis B or C, both illnesses that can destroy the liver and which kill thousands of people each year, it's clear that the little discussed organ's time in the public spotlight has arrived. Enter Baylor Liver Health, a new, comprehensive program that takes a collaborative tack to the escalating problem of liver disease. Its interdisciplinary venture aims to boost clinical and research efforts using a team of physicians at both Baylor College of Medicine and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston. They include pediatric and adult liver experts in hepatology, liver transplant and hepatobiliary surgery, oncology, radiology imaging and pathology. Of course, prevention is always the best solution, and Baylor Liver Health director Dr. John Vierling believes that many cases of liver cancer, cirrhosis, and the need for liver transplants – all of which are on the rise—can be avoided with earlier diagnoses, vaccination to prevent hepatitis A and B, and lifestyle modifications to reduce liver scarring. "We want to create systems that promote and retain liver health through prevention, conventional and experi-mental therapies and reduced rates of disease progression," said Vierling. These strategies will help close the increasing gap between the limited number of organs available and the exponential growth of recipients on waiting lists, as Baylor Liver Health continues to provide high-quality, cost-effective liver transplants to patients in the Southwest region of the country. Vierling also plans to expand access of patients with liver diseases to clinical trials and to promote basic science research into the causes of liver disease in each institution in the Medical Center. No Fooling
Much of the success of Baylor Liver Health will hinge on advances in translational or "bench to bedside" research to prevent patients with liver diseases from developing cirrhosis (advanced scarring) or liver cancer. "We want every patient, no matter what their liver disease or type of complication, to have access to state-of-the-art care and well-designed clinical trials to advance our ability to care for and cure liver diseases," he said. Vierling's credentials suggest that this is not wishful thinking. He is the president-elect of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease and previously served as chairman of the board of directors of the American Liver Foundation from 1994-2000. The opportunity to head Baylor Liver Health lured Vierling from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he was a professor of medicine. "Baylor College of Medicine has the unique mixture of resources, infrastructure, multiplicity of interdisciplinary programs culture of collaboration and scientific expertise necessary to achieve our vision of a 'world without liver diseases'," he said. A Chance to Help
"It happens every day," says Goss as he reads an e-mail he recently received from MatchingDonors.com. "It just shows that there are not enough organs for all the patients." Indeed, more patients die waiting for liver transplantation than due to complications from the operation itself. As director of liver transplantation for the new Baylor Liver Health program, Goss, a professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, vows to prevent end-stage liver problems through a combination of improved translational research and more informed patient care. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have more attention paid to liver health. "We don't have the same recognition for liver disease as other diseases have," he says. "There are many, many people with hepatitis C and other liver problems, but it's just not front-page material." Still, ever since his days as a resident at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Goss has understood the potential for liver treatment. "I wanted to do transplantation because you can help somebody immediately," he says. "You can take someone who is dying from liver failure and transplant them, and they can walk out of the hospital in seven days completely cured of their disease in many cases." |
Patient CareResearchThe Next Step in Cancer Research EducationHalf a Century Later... They're Still Giving Back Community ServiceFrom Despair to Hope: BCM Responds to Katrina Alumni & DevelopmentThe Vietnamese Cowboy and the Race Car Driver A Fortunate Life... A Fight Against Cancer College NewsA New Door for the East Campus New Museum to Showcase Maestro of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine: Making a Difference in the Community
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Volume 1, Issue 3, Fall 2005 |
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| Last modified: October 10, 2008 |
Dr. John Vierling's first day at Baylor was this past April Fool's Day, but his mission as head of Baylor Liver Health is anything but a laughing matter. From day one, he has been focused on dealing with emerging problems of diagnosing and treating liver disease. To do that, Baylor Liver Health is assembling an unprecedented, eclectic array of specialists that include hepatologists, liver transplant and hepatobiliary surgeons, endocrinologists, cardiovascular scientists, and weight management specialists.
As one of the few practicing liver transplant surgeons in Houston, Dr. John Goss is no stranger to receiving desperate pleas out of the blue from patients looking for organ donors.