April 23rd, 2008

Hundreds of patients each year undergo liver transplants when they don’t need them, and possibly never will, a four-month Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigation found.

The exhaustive series includes print, video and graphics.

From the first piece in the series, “How liver surgeries cut short patients’ lives“:

Terry Masker knew the end had arrived.

His family gathered around his hospital bed to celebrate his 60th birthday June 3. His babies, as he liked to call his grandchildren, brought a sheet cake and balloons.

Masker turned to his wife of 40 years.

“Why did we let them kill me?” he said.

Before a liver transplant eight months earlier, the former salesman often attended his grandson’s baseball games, cooked meatloaf for his family and cleaned his house in Elmira, N.Y.

“You would have never known he was sick,” said his eldest son, Mickey, 40.

Masker died on June 20, following two liver transplants at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.

It’s a lengthy series, but worth a look.