UAMS Performs State's First Liver Transplant

A surgical team at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) performed the state's first liver transplant May 14. The patient, a 56-year old Hot Springs man, was released from UAMS Medical Center five days after the surgery and continues to recover from the procedure.

Greg Gilliland, who was suffering from end-stage liver disease, received the new liver in a surgical procedure of less than four hours led by Youmin Wu, M.D., director of the UAMS Solid Organ Transplant Program and professor of surgery in the UAMS College of Medicine. Wu said there were no surgical complications during the procedure and a full recovery is anticipated.

“I feel wonderful,” Gilliland said as he and members of his family joined the liver transplant team at a news conference three days later. Gilliland had been on the transplant waiting list for about three weeks.

“This is an important event in Arkansas medical history with the introduction of another lifesaving technique for patients in the state,” said E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., dean of the College of Medicine .

Added Wu, “Our new liver transplant program has gotten off to a smooth and successful start because of the work of our team and the wonderful facilities we have at UAMS.”

UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., praised Reece for having the plan to create a liver transplant program at UAMS. “He and Dr. Michael Edwards, chairman of the Department of Surgery, brought an outstanding team together under the direction of Dr. Wu.”

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Wu and Gilliland, the state's first liver transplant patient, shake hands, surrounded by Gilliland's family and Anne Meeks, R.N., surgical nurse. Click photo for larger image.

UAMS Scientist Receives
Grant to Study Heart Disease Symptoms in Women

Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., R.N., professor in the UAMS College of Nursing, recently received a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the types of symptoms that women of various ages and racial backgrounds may experience prior to a heart attack.

The project will follow as many as 1,700 women in Arkansas and Kentucky who have been referred to a cardiologist and will document cardiac symptoms they may develop over a two-year period.

“The increasing number of coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths in younger women, plus the projected increase of it in older women paints a bleak picture. To reverse this trend, we need to be able to detect it in its early stages, but diagnosing CHD in women is challenging since they don’t experience the same symptoms typically associated with heart disease in men,” McSweeney said.

In previous studies by McSweeney, it was discovered that 97 percent of women with acute heart disease reported symptoms more than a month before a heart attack. Both black and white women have reported these symptoms, including unusual fatigue, sleep disturbance, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety.

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