The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center liver transplant program, shut down for the past year, is preparing to resume operations with a new team of transplant surgeons led by Dr. Douglas Hanto.

Hanto, recruited from the University of Cincinnati to become chief of transplantation at Beth Israel Deaconess, has taken over a program that has been in turmoil since Dr. Roger Jenkins took 28 members of the transplant team with him to the Lahey Clinic in 1999.

The hospital hired a new director, Dr. Maureen Martin, in February 2000, but shut down the liver transplant program last March after five of 22 adult patients died. Martin resigned a month later.

"I've really done a very thorough review and talked to everyone in the institution who has anything to do with liver transplant," said Hanto, who joined the Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in December. "The question was, 'Do we have the resources and the expertise here to do this?' My resounding answer is yes."

Hospital executives said they have received approval from the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees transplant programs nationwide, and from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to resume liver transplants.

The hospital in February opened a waiting list for liver patients and 20 have signed up.

In addition to Hanto, Beth Israel Deaconess has recruited Dr. Frank Opelka, a colon and rectal surgeon from Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans; Dr. Per-Olof Hasselgren, an endocrine surgeon from the University of Cincinnati; Dr. Larry Gentilello, a trauma surgeon from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle; and Dr. Simon Ashiku, a thoracic surgeon, and Dr. Kathy Golbarg Niknejad, a urological surgeon, both of whom recently completed their residency training programs.

Other sources: Boston Globe