Liver Center

Leading Liver Disease Care

The Massachusetts General Hospital Liver Center is a world leader in the diagnosis and treatment of liver disease. Patients in our program are cared for by a multidisciplinary team of experts, including medical oncologists, liver surgeons, radiation oncologists, as well as pathologists and radiologists. Our specialists are authorities in all forms of acute and chronic liver disease, including:

• Cholestatic and autoimmune liver disease
• Cirrhosis (Care Packet)
• Fatty liver disease
• Liver cancer
• Liver transplantation
• Viral hepatitis

We provide our patients:

• Experience and expertise. We treat thousands of patients every year from throughout New England, the United States and the world. The Liver Center physicians are recognized experts in all types of liver disease
• Comprehensive care with a team approach. The Liver Center team works closely with other world-class specialists in imaging, pathology, surgery and oncology to provide our patients comprehensive care of their liver disease
• Access to leading-edge research. Our patients have access to the latest advances in liver disease care and to clinical trials investigating the therapies of tomorrow.

Our Clinics

• Hepatitis C Clinic
• Hepatitis B Clinic
• Fatty Liver Disease Clinic
• Autoimmune and Cholestatic Liver Disease Clinic
• Hepatocellular Carcinoma Clinic
• Pre-liver Transplant Clinic
• Liver Tumor Clinic
• Genetic Metabolic Liver Disease Clinic

Liver Surgery

The liver surgeons at Mass General are highly specialized, highly experienced and nationally recognized experts. Our surgeons have undergone specialty training in liver and bile duct operations or transplantation, and offer the highest degree of specialization and expertise. Liver operations are complex and published data have demonstrated that hospitals and surgeons with the highest volume and experience have the lowest complication and death rates. The higher number of operations performed by surgeons can lead to better outcomes.

Working within a team of medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and hepatologists at the Liver Mass Center and Tucker Gosnell Center for Gastrointestinal Cancer within the Mass General Cancer Center, liver surgeons perform conventional to complex surgeries, using:

• Advanced surgical techniques to resect high risk liver masses, including ex-vivo resections (taking the liver out of the body, removing a mass and putting it back in)
• Minimally invasive operations, including laparoscopic and robotic liver resections
• Hepatic artery infusion pumps for unresectable liver cancers
• High-dose radiation with either protons or photons to downstage liver cancers so patients can undergo an operation
• Microwave or radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors, a minimally invasive procedure that uses heat to destroy cancer cells
• NanoKnife (irreversible electroporation), in which an electric current destroys cancer cells