PENNY -- STRONG'S DR. MARCOS MOVING TO....

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Living-Donor Liver Transplant Surgeon Moves to Pittsburgh

The surgeon most closely identified with the upsurge in controversial living-donor liver transplants for adult patients has moved to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, his fourth hospital in the past three years.

Dr. Amadeo Marcos, 39, left Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester after only two years. During his stay in Rochester, Strong Memorial performed more of the still-controversial adult-to-adult liver transplants in 2001 than any other hospital in the United States.

Marcos had left Medical College of Virginia, which pioneered adult living-donor liver transplants in 1998, in the spring of 2000 to become director of the living-donor liver transplant program at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

But he left Beth Israel-Deaconess after only a couple of months to become director of the transplant program at Strong Memorial.

The University of Pittsburgh has been one of the more cautious major centers on the subject of living-donor adult liver transplants, not performing its first until late 2000.

But Dr. Fung, chief of transplantation at Pittsburgh, said "we've assuaged a lot of the concerns about the ethics and safety," and said that with Marcos' arrival, Pittsburgh might perform as many as 50 in the coming year.