History & Milestones

UCLA Abdominal Transplant History & Milestones 

There is no substitute for experience

Founded by Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil MD, PhD. in 1984, the UCLA transplant program performed its first liver transplant on February 1, 1984 and quickly became one of the foremost comprehensive transplant centers in the world and among the few national centers performing every type of transplantation in both children and adults.

Our unmatched experience of over 7000 liver transplants to date – including over 1000 pediatric cases, and nearly 9000 kidney transplants - makes us a world-class leader and innovator in the field. Our fellowship will expose you to a diverse compliment of cases and provide you the opportunity to become proficient in both the surgical and medical management of transplant patients.

Program milestones:

1960 – 1st Living Donor Kidney transplant
1965 – 1st Kidney transplant
1984 – 1st Adult Liver Transplant
1984 – 1st Pediatric liver transplant
1991 – 1st Split Liver transplant
1991 – 1st Multivisceral transplant
1993 – 1st Living Donor Liver transplant
1994 – 1st Pancreas transplant
2010 – 1st Heart-Liver transplant
2011 – 1st Lung-Liver transplant
2016 – 1st Heart-Liver-Kidney transplant
2017 – 1st Ex-vivo Normothermic Machine Perfusion Liver transplant