Transplant Timeline – Pancreas and Liver

1963: First Liver Transplant: Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Colorado in Denver attempts the first liver transplant, but the patient dies within a few days.

1966: First Pancreas Transplant: Drs. Richard C. Lillehei and William D. Kelly of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, transplant a pancreas into a 28-year-old woman; immediately after transplant, her blood sugar level begins to fall, but she dies three months later from pulmonary embolism.

1967: First Successful Liver Transplant: Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Colorado in Denver performs the first successful liver transplant. The liver functions for 13 months.

1969-1974: Xenotransplant – First Transplants of Non-Human Primate Livers: Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Colorado in Denver transplants chimpanzee livers into children. The survival rate ranges from one to 14 days.

1974: First Islet Cell Transplant: Dr. David Sutherland of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis performs the world's first islet cell transplant. The procedure works for only a short time before the patient's immune system destroys the new cells.

1979: First Living-Related Pancreas Transplant: Dr. David Sutherland of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis performs the first living-related pancreas transplant.

1984: First Heart-Liver Transplant: The first heart-liver transplant is performed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania.

1988: First Successful Liver-Bowel Transplant : David Grant of the University Hospital of London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario, transplants a liver and six meters (20 feet) of bowel into 41-year-old Doris Wells, who had been unable to eat or drink after having her small bowel removed in 1987. During that time, she was fed intravenously through a device, which she was hooked up to for eight to 12 hours each night.

1988: First Two-In-One Liver Transplant: Two patients at Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif, France, receive a liver transplant, when one donated organ is cut in half.

1989: First Successful Living-Related Liver Transplant: Dr. Christopher Broelsch of the University of Chicago Medical Center transplants a portion of Teri Smith's liver into her 21-month-old daughter, Alyssa, who suffered from biliary atresia. Both mother and daughter are still healthy today.

1989: First Combination Heart, Liver, and Kidney Transplant: Surgeons at Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, transplant a heart, liver, and kidney into a 26-year-old woman. She survives for four months.

1992: Xenotransplant – First Pig Liver Transplant(s): Doctors at Duke University use pig liver as a "bridge" to keep two women alive while awaiting liver transplants. In one patient, the liver is kept outside the body and hooked to the liver arteries – she survives long enough to receive a human liver. In the other, the pig liver is implanted beside her own liver and she lives for 32 hours.

1995: Transplantation of All Abdominal Organs: In order to transplant a new kidney, pancreas, stomach, liver, large and small bowel, and one iliac artery, doctors at the University of Miami in Florida remove all abdominal organs from a patient with Gardner's syndrome.

1998: First Combined Liver and Bone Marrow Transplant: Surgeons at King's College Hospital in London, England, perform the first combined liver and bone marrow transplant procedure on 18-year-old Hugo Hennessy, who is suffering from CD40 Ligand Deficiency, which kills 75% of sufferers by age 20.

1999: The Edmonton Protocol: Drs. James Shapiro and Jonathan Lakey of the University of Alberta in Edmonton perform an islet cell transplant on patients who do not require other organ transplants (e.g., kidney) but who have had severe problems with diabetes (type I). The new treatment method involves injecting islet cells from donor pancreases into a patient's portal vein in a non-surgical procedure in combination with steroid-free anti-rejection drugs: Sirolimus (Rapamune), Tacrolimus (FK506 Prograf), and Daclizimab (Zenapax). The cells migrate to the pancreas, where they produce insulin. The Edmonton group initially works with seven patients, all of whom become insulin independent after the procedure (The New England Journal of Medicine, July 27, 2000).

In September 2000, centers in the United States, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland begin participating in the Immune Tolerance Network multi-center trial of the Edmonton Protocol. For more information, see: Clinical Islet Transplant Program.

2005: First Living Donor Islet Transplant: On January 19, a team of surgeons at the Kyoto University Hospital in Japan, under the supervision of Dr. James Shapiro (see 1999: The Edmonton Protocol), took islet cells from the pancreas of a 56-year-old woman and transplanted them into the liver of her 27-year-old diabetic daughter. The transplanted cells began producing insulin within minutes.