Report: UPMC needs to up transplant survival rate.

Byline: Luis Fabregas

July 17--UPMC's live-donor liver and kidney transplant programs are back in operation after a more than nine-week shutdown, but a new national report indicates the world-renowned facility needs to improve the survival rate of its liver transplant patients and transplanted livers following surgery. The one-year survival rate for adult liver transplant patients -- a key measure of performance -- was 82 percent at UPMC's Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute compared with an expected survival rate of 87.3 percent, according to the report published last week by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. On average, nearly 89 percent of liver transplant patients nationwide were alive a year after the surgery, according to the report, which measured outcomes in liver transplants performed between January 2008 and June 2010 against expected rates. The report also showed 78.5 percent of transplanted livers at UPMC were functioning a year after surgery, compared with an expected 83 …