M Health Fairview Masonic Childrens Hospital is the longest-running top-ranked children’s hospital in the Twin Cities. We combine comprehensive care, advanced medical minds, and caring hearts in a team approach with your child and your family at its center. Our team stands ready to give your child the brightest possible future.
Many different organs and systems in the body depend on the liver. If a child is born with a liver issue, or develops one later, it can affect many aspects of a child’s growth and development. That’s why our comprehensive, multidisciplinary program includes hepatologists, dietitians, genetics and metabolism specialists, surgeons, transplant specialists, pharmacists, laboratory experts, and many others. Together, they work seamlessly to provide your child and family with patient-centered care. Our liver care specialists also work alongside pediatric gastroenterologists and others to provide comprehensive care for all issues affecting your child’s digestive system.
We offer a wide range of diagnostic tests and procedures for both common and rare liver disorders in children, including ultrasound or MRI-based elastography, endoscopic management of complications of cirrhosis, liver biopsy, and state-of-the-art imaging.
If your child’s treatment plan involves a liver transplant, it’s comforting to know that your child will receive truly world-class care at M Health Fairview Pediatrics. Our team of specialists has performed more than 540 pediatric liver transplants since 1964. In 1982, we performed a successful liver transplant on an 11-month-old infant, who has since become the world’s longest living pediatric liver recipient. Our living-donor liver transplants have some of the highest success rates in the United States. Our goal is to provide treatments leading to your child’s highest quality of life.
Our liver care experts work closely with our colleagues from our renowned Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis Center to care for children experiencing liver complications, such as portal hypertension, related to pediatric cystic fibrosis. We also collaborate with experts from our Rare Disease program on genetic or metabolic diseases affecting the liver.
Many of our doctors are also researchers and faculty members at University of Minnesota Medical School, which means the same physicians caring for children in our health system are also working to develop the next medical breakthroughs in liver care. Through participation in clinical trials, your child might be able to access new treatments or therapies before they’re widely available.
In partnership with the robust research enterprise at the University of Minnesota, our pediatric hepatology team currently conducts clinical studies in:
- Chronic hepatitis B
- Gastrointestinal, liver, and nutritional complications of pediatric cystic fibrosis
- Management of autoimmune hepatitis
- Alagille syndrome
