It was just over two years ago when Jason Colline was told that the cancer in his colon had metastasized to his liver. He said the doctor who performed his colonoscopy then gave him a referral.
“He said, ‘Look they're doing a new procedure at Strong, where they're doing transplants on cancer patients where it's metastasized to their liver,’” Colline recalled.
Dr. Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro and his team had only recently begun doing living-donor liver transplants to treat colon cancer that had spread into the liver. University of Rochester Medical Center's Transplant Institute became one of the first two centers in the nation to open offer this program.
“Nowadays we're the number one center doing this diagnosis for transplantation,” said Hernandez-Alejandro, URMC's chief of the Division of Transplantation. Since its first procedure in 2019, the Transplant Institute has done 25 living-donor liver transplants, and patients all over the country have been coming to URMC to get evaluated for the operation.
The procedure has been reported to increase the survival rate by 60%. Years ago, late-stage colon cancer was a “death sentence for patients,” according to Hernandez-Alejandro. He said patients with colon cancer that spread to the liver usually didn’t survive past two years with the disease.
“Now for some of them, there’s hope that they could be cured. They could live longer. That would be something of huge impact for the community,” he said.
After finding out he was a viable candidate, Colline used social media to find a donor. He said the response was overwhelming.
“I'm the one who lets everyone borrow my tools. I don't borrow any of theirs,” Colline said. “And when you're always the one providing . . . to have someone say ‘hey, I'm going to go under the knife for you,’ it's really a humbling experience.”
Colline spent nine months searching for the right match until his son volunteered to be a donor. By that time Colline had already had 42 rounds of chemotherapy, had part of his colon removed, and his colon cancer was in remission.
“The fact that he just was like this is something I have to do, I'm grateful and proud of him for sure,” Colline said about his son.
December will mark a year since the liver transplant. Besides some dietary restrictions, Colline is cancer free and said he’s feeling fine. He wants the community to know that living-donor liver transplant is an option.
“People need to understand, that if they have metastasis in their liver, this transplant is here,” Colline said. “It's in Rochester. They're the leaders. They're doing the right thing.”
Hernandez-Alejandro said unfortunately there are still not enough organs to meet the demands of society, and the system still needs more people to donate.
“We do a lot, but there's not enough,” he said.
