News & Events: Organ Transplantation Policy

The Organ Procurement Transplantation Network (OPTN) recently updated the liver distribution policy to provide better efficiency and fairness for transplant patients – regardless where they live, what hospital they choose for care or how sick they must be before being likely to get a transplant – and a UC San Francisco transplant surgeon was instrumental in its development. UCSF Health transplant surgeon Ryutaro Hirose, M.D. was former chair of the OPTN Liver and Intestinal Organ Transplantation Committee, which formulated the new policy that adjusts how geography is considered when [...]

UCSF transplant surgeon Ryutaro Hirose, M.D. has been appointed Surgical Medical Director of the  Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). Below is the official announcement: The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Ryutaro (Ryo) Hirose as Surgical Director of the SRTR. Dr. Hirose serves as Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and will continue in that role while lending his vast expertise to SRTR. In this new role, Dr. Hirose will provide general surgical expertise to all [...]

ABC News San Francisco (KGO) reports on the case of a Utah man, recovering from a lung transplant in Pennsylvania after a Utah hospital refused to put him on their transplant list because of past marijuana use. (The man subsequently died after the airing of the KGO story.) UCSF transplant surgeon, Ryutaro Hirose, M.D., was interviewed by KGO and regarding the policy on this is issue at UCSF. "We've recently liberalized our criteria regarding marijuana," said Dr. Ryutaro Hirose who is a transplant surgeon at UCSF, the country's busiest transplant center. Unlike the hospital in Utah, UCSF [...]