匹兹堡大学医学中心（UPMC）近期邀请了国际顶尖专家，就活体肝移植中并发症的发生率问题进行了探讨。
UPMC的官员在周二没有对此项研究做出任何解释，关注的焦点之一就是UPMC最重要、发展最快的移植计划。
UPMC的法律顾问Robert J. Cindrich在E-mail中写到，“我们为这项移植计划感到骄傲，同时也相信此次审查的结果会再次证明该移植计划所取得的卓越成果。”

但是，匹兹堡大学Thomas E. Starzl器官移植研究所的负责人Amadeo Marcos博士却在周一突然辞职。他表示辞职完全是出于个人原因，与正在接受审查的移植计划没有任何关系。对于现年46岁的Marcos为何会辞职的问题，UPMC的官员没有做出任何解释。
Cindrich说：“我不能对此事发表评论，因为我们不能也不应该干涉、讨论别人的私人问题和雇佣问题。”
另一方面，Kenneth R. McCurry博士也辞去UPMC肺、心肺移植计划组主管的职位。UPMC昨天宣布Yoshiya Toyoda博士为新一任负责人。
UPMC发言人Paul Wood表示，此举将有利于新任成员获得行政管理经验。“McCurry博士是一名很优秀的医师，仍然会继续致力于UPMC。”Wood说，“这一点与Marcos博士的离职完全没有关联。”
Wood表示，在过去的四年中，UPMC的外科医生已经开展了120例以上的活体肝移植，这些数字已经足够进行分析了。
Cindrich称该研究基础深厚、项目独立，是由UPMC的医生、匹兹堡大学器官移植机构以外的专家以及国际知名领袖共同参与完成的。
移植界较为知名的Pierre-Alain Clavien博士是本研究的参与者之一。由Clavien发明的分级系统被广泛用于衡量活体肝移植中的并发症。
Wood说，UPMC已经邀请了Clavien对并发症进行分级。从印度南部发来的一封E-Mail中写到：“UPMC正式授权（他）为’同业互查’审查组的成员”。而Clavien则拒绝对此发表评论。
Wood表示在研究结束时，底稿将经过同业互查，并提交发表在医学杂志上。
UPMC的官员将不会谈论研究结果，但在周一晚上的采访中Marcos表示这些结果并不意外，与接受尸体捐赠的肝脏相比，接受活体肝移植的患者有更高的并发症发病率。
Marcos于2002年来到匹兹堡，2004年成为移植中心主任。同时他还带来了活体肝移植的专门技术，即以活人捐赠的部分肝脏替代患者的病变器官。
昨天Marcos拒绝发表评论，预计在6月份任期到期前，他会继续留在UPMC完成此项研究并结束手头上的工作，之后会在别处寻求一份新的职务。
根据UNOS的信息，活体捐赠计划组最近公布了肝移植受体的一年存活率，稍微低于预期值。
Cindrich写到，“如果声称在国际著名移植专家和他的移植小组高技术水平的治疗下没有一名患者受到’伤害’，那未免太过于明显了。”
UPMC transplant results examined

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has asked top international experts to look at complication rates for its live-donor liver transplant program.

UPMC officials on Tuesday would not give a reason for the study, which focuses on one of UPMC's most important and fastest-growing transplant programs.

"We are quite proud of our transplant program and feel that the results will reaffirm the excellence of the program," Robert J. Cindrich, UPMC's legal counsel, wrote in an e-mail.

The chief of UPMC's Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, Dr. Amadeo Marcos, resigned unexpectedly Monday. He said he was stepping down for personal reasons and not anything related to the ongoing review. "

UPMC officials have not said why Marcos, 46, resigned.

"I cannot comment as we are not at liberty to discuss personnel issues or employee activity governed by our code of conduct," Cindrich said.

In a separate move, Dr. Kenneth R. McCurry is stepping aside as section chief of lung and heart-lung transplantation programs at UPMC. Dr. Yoshiya Toyoda is the new section head, UPMC announced yesterday.

The move will "allow junior faculty members to gain administrative experience," UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said.

"Dr. McCurry is an excellent physician and remains committed to UPMC," Wood said. "This is completely separate and unrelated to Dr. Marcos' resignation."

UPMC surgeons have performed more than 120 live-donor liver transplants in the last four years. Those numbers are enough to conduct a meaningful analysis, Wood said.

Cindrich called the study broad-based and independent, saying it is being conducted by doctors from UPMC's transplant program, University of Pittsburgh experts outside the transplant department and internationally respected leaders in the field.

One of the better-known participants in the study is transplant expert Dr. Pierre-Alain Clavien, based in Zurich. A scale developed by Clavien is widely used in surgery to measure complications in live-donor liver transplants.

UPMC asked Clavien to categorize the complications, Wood said. Saying in an e-mail from South India that he's "officially mandated by UPMC for a peer review," Clavien declined to comment.

When the study is complete, a manuscript will be subjected to peer review and submitted for publication in a medical journal, Wood said.

UPMC officials would not talk about the study's findings, but in an interview Monday night Marcos said they are not unexpected. He said people who receive a liver from a living donor have a higher rate of complications than those who get a liver from a cadaveric donor.

Marcos came to Pittsburgh in 2002 and became chief of transplantation in 2004. He brought with him an expertise in doing live-donor liver transplants, in which a portion of a living donor's liver is used to replace a recipient's ailing organ.

Marcos declined to comment yesterday. He is expected to remain at UPMC through the end of his contract in June, completing research projects, finalizing his work and seeking a new position elsewhere.

The live-donor program recently posted a slightly lower-than-expected one-year survival rate for liver transplant recipients, according to the United Network of Organ Sharing, or UNOS, the national clearinghouse for organs.

"It seems too obvious to add that no patients have been 'harmed' by having had available to them one of the world's well-respected transplant surgeons and his highly skilled colleagues who comprise the transplant team," Cindrich wrote.

[责任编辑:刘聪]