Since performing the first two liver transplants in the entire country 41 years ago, HUB has established itself as a reference center for this procedure. In addition, the hospital’s Liver Transplant Unit has, in recent years, strengthened collaboration with regional hospitals and advanced research to improve surgical outcomes.
This August, professionals at Bellvitge Hospital carried out the 2,000th liver transplant, a milestone that places it as the fourth centre in the country in terms of activity and confirms its role as a reference in this field. In this case, the liver transplant was combined with a simultaneous bariatric surgery procedure. This represents a first step in controlling metabolic syndrome associated with fatty liver disease, which is becoming an increasingly prevalent indication for liver transplantation.
Dr. Laura Lladó, Director of the Liver Transplant Program at Bellvitge Hospital, highlights teamwork and professional collaboration as key to this achievement: “Hepatobiliary surgeons, hepatologists, anesthesiologists, intensivists, transplant coordinators, nurses, perfusionists, nursing assistants, orderlies, and a long list of other professionals continue, after four decades, to work together every day to provide a better public service to citizens — and without the generosity of donors, we would not have reached this point.”
Throughout its history, the Liver Transplant Unit of Bellvitge University Hospital has had as program directors Eduardo Jaurrieta, Joan Figueras, Joan Fabregat, and, since 2022, Laura Lladó, the first woman to assume this responsibility in a hospital in Spain. In recent years, aside from the interruption caused by the pandemic, Bellvitge University Hospital has consistently maintained a high level of activity (between 50 and 60 transplants per year), with excellent results comparable to the best centres in Spain and Europe.
“In addition, we have strengthened the donation-after-circulatory-death program and our collaboration with the Vall d’Hebron Hospital team in ‘split’ transplantation (dividing a liver for pediatric donation), as well as implementing perfusion machines to optimize grafts,” notes Dr. Lladó. Likewise, in collaboration with OCATT, new transplant criteria have been incorporated, especially from an oncological perspective, providing more patients with opportunities to improve survival.
The Liver Transplant Unit at Bellvitge Hospital participates in numerous research projects, both independent and multicentre, at national and international levels, allowing it to remain a leader in clinical and technological innovation.
More than four decades of accumulated expertise
The trajectory of the Liver Transplant Unit on its way to 2,000 transplants has been marked by a timeline of remarkable milestones:
-February 23, 1984: Juan Cuesta receives the first liver transplant in Spain. Surgeons Carles Margarit and Eduardo Jaurrieta led the large team of professionals who carried out the operation. At that time, only four teams worldwide were performing liver transplants.
-March 25, 1984: The same team performs the second liver transplant in Spain, this time on an eleven-year-old girl.
-May 1, 1986: Montse Collado, then 28 years old, receives a liver transplant at Bellvitge Hospital. Thirty-nine years later, she remains fully active and is the longest-surviving liver transplant recipient in Spain.
-November 3, 1998: The first simultaneous liver and kidney transplant in Catalonia is performed at HUB, and one of the first in Europe.
-February 25, 1999: HUB becomes the first hospital in Spain to perform a domino transplant (using the liver from a patient transplanted for hereditary familial amyloidosis and implanting it in a third person).
-June 4, 1999: HUB celebrates its first 500 liver transplants, with progressively better survival rates and decreasing rejection rates.
-January 4, 2002: The Liver Transplant Unit once again leads in Spain by performing the first liver transplant on an HIV-positive patient. 2007: The -milestone of 1,000 liver transplants is reached.
-2009: Professionals and patients celebrate together the 25th anniversary of the first liver transplant.
-December 1, 2016: HUB marks 1,500 liver transplants with a scientific symposium.
-2018: The first controlled donation-after-circulatory-death liver transplant is performed at HUB.
-February 23, 2024: The 40th anniversary of the first liver transplant is celebrated with a commemorative event and exhibition, attended by OCATT, ONT, the Spanish Society for Liver Transplantation, and a large number of professionals and patients.