The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham’s Liver Unit provides world-class care for its patients. The Liver Foundation, UHB Charity’s special fund for the Liver Unit, provides cutting-edge medical equipment that benefits patients, but is over and above what is provided by the NHS.
What we have funded
Fibroscan
We have funded several Fibroscan machines here at QEHB. At £80,000, this piece of technology provides a painless, non-invasive analysis of the liver in as little as ten minutes. Fibroscan avoids the previous need for an intrusive biopsy which required an overnight hospital stay.
This innovative equipment can also detect liver damage or disease and, if problems are identified early, treatments can be tailored to the patient and serious liver damage and disease can be avoided.
With your help, equipment such as this can be provided to the Liver Outpatients Department to go 'over and above' for our liver patients.
Ultrasound
The Charity has funded an ultrasound machine to be used on patients with a variety of liver-related illnesses. This saves them having to take a long journey from the seventh floor to the ground floor Imaging Department whilst recovering from traumatic procedures such as liver transplants.
The OrganOx machine
The OrganOx machine helps to clean a donated liver ready for transplantation, increasing the chances of the recipient’s body accepting the new liver, and increasing the number of organs that will be considered for transplant. This incredible piece of equipment came to QEHB in 2018 thanks to the Ann Fox Foundation who funded the £117,000 machinery in memory of Ann who passed away following a liver transplant. Tharama Perrera, Consultant Liver Transplant Surgeon, said: “This is the future. With this technology we will be able to run tests on the liver before it is transplanted so you can make sure it is working properly. “We can also manipulate the environment that the liver is sitting in to improve functionality and insulin levels." University Hospitals Birmingham Charity is supporting the trials in a number of ways including funding a post-doctoral scientist.
To donate to the Liver Foundation UK please click the 'donate to this fund' button at the top of this page.
The NAPLES Project
Mr Thamara Perera, pictured with a liver transplant reciepient.
Surgeons at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, led by Mr Thamara Perera and with the support of the Liver Foundation, have been working on pioneering technology to make more donor livers available to patients with complex medical requirements.
The NAPLES (Normothermic mAchine Perfusion of the Liver to Enanle 'Sickest first' transplantation) Project seeks to use the Organ Ox machine, purchased by the Charity in 2018 with the help and fundraising of the Ann Fox Foundation, to test marginal liver grafts.
This machine emulates the workings of the human body so that the quality of problematic or 'marginal' livers can not only be proven but often improved upon, making more livers available for patients who may otherwise be removed from the donor waiting list. Without a transplant, most of these patients would sadly die.
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the Charity has already raised enough money to conduct up to 25 transplants using the Organ Ox machine in an initial pilot. The project has so far saved the lives of 20 patients and aims to complete another 50 transplants at an estimated cost of £250,000.
If you would like to support this appeal please click the donate button above or contact the Charity on 0121 371 4852 or email charities@uhb.nhs.uk.
