USC transplants have worst death rates in U.S.

The University of Southern California (USC) Hospital has among the worst death rates in liver transplants throughout the country, it was reported on Friday.

The hospital liver transplant program used to be among the best hospitals in liver transplants after its launch in 1996, the Los Angeles Times said.

In a span of two and a half years, 38 of 164 USC Hospital liver patients died within a year of their transplants, twice as many as expected, according to the most recent national data, the paper said.

The data largely factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.

The reasons for USC's declining success rate -- the death rate began climbing in 2003 -- remain largely a mystery, The Times reported.

Prompted by an article in The Times in July, regulators and outside experts hired by the hospital are investigating.

There are several possible explanations: It could be that the program was choosing the wrong patients for transplants or using organs of poor quality, according to the paper. It could be that the team mishandled surgeries or follow-up care. Or it could be a combination of reasons, including bad luck.

Officials at USC's Keck School of Medicine, which runs the clinical side of the program, and at the hospital, owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., declined to be interviewed, The Times reported.

But in a joint statement in September, both pointed to an answer: They were consciously taking high-risk patients to provide extremely sick people with "a chance at life despite the risks of lowering our survival statistics".

The program appears to have gone too far, according to top transplant experts who reviewed medical records for The Times.

"They're pushing it as hard as they can and having the results that you'd expect to see," Dr. David Mulligan, chairman of transplant surgery at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona who also sits on the board of a national oversight group, told The Times.