Liver

If you have end-stage liver disease, a liver transplant can bring hope. Thousands of patients have trusted their care to the experienced team at University of Florida Health Shands Transplant Center. Our center has over 20 years’ experience providing excellent care to patients with complex liver diseases.

Our team members from many specialties work together to provide you with the best care possible. While other centers may follow a liver transplant patient for several months after surgery, at UF Health, we follow our patients for life. Doing this leads to better outcomes and a higher rate of success with your transplanted organ.

The UF Health Difference

At UF Health, our liver transplant patients benefit from experience, expertise, and excellence.

• Excellence. Our liver transplant program is one of the most experienced programs in Florida, having performed over 2,000 liver transplant with a majority of our patients waiting just 30 days to transplantation. We continue to surpass the national average for waitlist mortality and have one of the highest survival rates of all liver transplant programs in the nation.
• Experience. We were one of the first liver transplant programs in the state of Florida — and we’ve continued to lead the field in transplant techniques. Our physicians at the University of Florida College of Medicine are committed to focusing their knowledge and research on patients with advanced liver disease.
• Expertise. Our team has successfully transplanted more than 2,000 patients with end-stage liver disease. According to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients July 2021 report, our one-year survival rate is 94.55%, exceeding the national average of 92.14%. Our multidisciplinary approach to patient care draws on the combined expertise of our transplant physicians, transplant surgeons, nurse coordinators, transplant assistants, social workers, financial counselors, transplant pharmacists, immunogeneticists, anesthesiologists, intensivists and psychologists.

Liver Transplant Services

Our liver transplant team provides you with a customized treatment plan. This means our team works closely together and with you to understand you, your liver condition and your treatment goals, enabling us to develop an optimal treatment plan based on your needs. The UF Health team closely follows you as you await transplant and following transplant, which helps to improve patient outcomes.

While waiting for an organ, you will receive a thorough yearly examination. This is because livers can become available quickly, and you need to be physically ready for surgery at short notice.

Liver Transplant Surgery

Your liver transplant surgery will last between four and eight hours. Following surgery, you will likely be in the intensive-care unit (ICU) for about two days, and then spend another eight to ten days in a regular hospital room, so we can provide close follow-up care after surgery to help monitor your medications and ensure you heal properly.

Jessica's Story

Learn More

View our program outcomes from the SRTR website, as last reported in July 2021.

To learn more about our liver transplant services, contact 352.265.0754.