Among its numerous groundbreaking discoveries and treatment programs, Children’s Hospital Colorado has served as a game-changer in the field of pediatric liver surgery. The first liver transplant ever performed on a child took place with the participation of its physicians, and its pediatric liver care program continues to receive national and international acclaim. And Children’s Hospital Colorado is the only Rocky Mountain-region facility to provide pediatric liver transplantation operations supported by a full complement of medical specialties. The hospital’s current team includes a pediatric transplant surgeon who has built up extensive experience in hepatobiliary procedures, physicians focused specifically on end-stage liver conditions, doctors who concentrate on treating infectious disease, nutritionists, social workers, and psychologists.

 

Children’s Hospital Colorado currently offers treatment programs to address congenital fibrosis of the liver, autoimmune hepatitis, liver cancer, acute liver failure, and a wide range of other conditions. Its physicians treat genetic disorders such as Wilson disease, a condition that causes toxic levels of copper to accrue in the body, leading to organ failure, and Alagille syndrome, in which a mutation results in a lack of sufficient bile ducts to form in the liver, creating a dangerous accumulation of toxins. In 2010, Children’s Hospital Colorado performed an operation to save a 1-year-old girl suffering from biliary atresia, a rare disease in which a child’s body attacks its own bile ducts, leading to liver failure. Left untreated, the condition typically causes death within the first year and a half of life. The 12-hour transplant procedure, performed at the hospital’s Pediatric Liver Transplant Program unit, has given the little girl a fresh chance at a healthy life.