Respected as a leader in liver transplants, Dr. Lewis Teperman serves as director and founder of Mary Lea Johnson Richards Organ Transplantation Center. He was honored at the 2014 Liver Foundation gala event held in New York City. As part of his effort to ameliorate and cure liver disease, Dr. Lewis Teperman and his associates support dialysis and other treatments.

Most commonly used in cases of kidney disease, dialysis flushes toxins from the affected area until physicians can perform a transplant.

In essence, dialysis machines act as makeshift organs, stepping in to perform the same functions and taking stress off the affected kidney.

Although they perform the same function, kidney dialysis and more recently, liver dialysis, help only to varying degrees. Kidney dialysis can keep patients alive for months, while liver dialysis is useful for a very limited time. Many physicians choose kidney dialysis for a patient while the patient waits for a organ from a deceased donor.

When a liver donor is available,

physicians take only a portion of the liver.

The liver only needs a small portion of a

healthy organ to rejuvenate itself, which

enables donors to rejuvenate their own

livers as quickly as the patient.