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Liver transplant at Abu Dhabi hospital gives cancer patient a second chance
Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s first multi-organ transplant centre, has performed over 100 liver transplants in 2024
- PUBLISHED: Mon 25 Aug 2025, 5:08 PM
- By:
- WAM
A hospital in the Capital, Abu Dhabi, has carried out a groundbreaking liver transplant for a patient with colorectal liver metastases—a type of colon cancer that had spread to the liver.
The delicate surgical operation was performed at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi on a 40-year-old patient from Jordan whose cancer, initially diagnosed as colon cancer in 2019, had spread to the liver and proved unresponsive to conventional treatments.
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The achievement marks an important step forward in cancer and transplant care in the region.
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"By introducing advanced, highly specialised treatments to the region, we’re not only improving outcomes, we’re offering new hope to patients facing some of the rarest and most complex conditions," said Dr Georges-Pascal Haber, Chief Executive Officer at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
Expressing it as a pivotal milestone for the region, Dr. Luis Campos, Staff Physician, Abdominal Transplant, Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, said, “It reflects our commitment to advancing complex care and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in transplantation."
For his part, Dr Josep Yuba, Consultant in Abdominal Organ Transplantation at the Digestive Disease Institute in the hospital, said that the patient’s case was highly complex, as the cancer repeatedly returned despite extensive surgeries and intensive chemotherapy.
He pointed out that chemotherapy often controls the disease only temporarily before losing its effectiveness, allowing the cancer to grow again. With the patient's cancer spreading widely in the liver, surgery was no longer an option, since any further resection would have left an insufficient portion of the liver.
Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s first multi-organ transplant centre, is ranked among one of the top transplant centres globally, having performed over 100 liver transplants in 2024, and a total of 360 liver transplants since the launch of the programme in 2017.
