Christoph Broelsch

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Christoph Erich Broelsch (born September 14, 1944 in Hanau ; † February 12, 2019 in Düsseldorf ) was a German surgeon and pioneer of liver transplantation. In 1989 he performed the first successful live liver transplant on a child.

life and work

Broelsch grew up with his four sisters and one brother in Bremen-Schwachhausen . His father Werner Broelsch (1910-2010) worked there as a youth pastor. At the end of the 1950s the family moved to Berlin. After graduating from high school in Steglitz in 1963 , Broelsch studied medicine in Cologne , Erlangen and Düsseldorf . After ten years at the Hannover Medical School under Rudolf Pichlmayr , he accepted a call to the University of Chicago , where he was given the chair for hepatobiliary transplantation (liver transplantation). It was here in 1989 that Broelsch carried out the first live liver transplant in the USA from a mother to her child. Before that, Broelsch had developed a method of liver division in which one donor liver could be used for two recipients, so-called “split liver”. In the case of living donation, only a part (segment) of the liver is removed from the healthy donor and used in the sick person. The procedure is based on the fact that parts of the liver can grow back into a complete organ. The difficulty is to divide (“split”) the organ of the healthy donor in such a way that no vital blood vessels are severed. From around 1999 onwards, new imaging processes and the 3D visualization of internal organs significantly improved safety.

In 1991 Christoph Broelsch took over the management of the clinic for general, visceral and transplant surgery (connected to the chair) at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf . From 1998 until his suspension in 2007 he was director of the clinic for general and transplant surgery in Essen . Broelsch has been honored several times for his services. He was the doctor of the Federal President Johannes Rau . Broelsch died on February 12, 2019 at the age of 74.

Judicial proceedings

After several cases of living liver donations under questionable circumstances, the Essen public prosecutor's office opened an investigation against the surgeon. According to a disclosure report by WDR journalist Wolfgang Buschfort in 2007, Broelsch was finally accused of bribery in Essen , partly in the act of coercion , of fraud and tax evasion and was sentenced in the first instance to three years' imprisonment without parole. He was accused of only allowing dozens of patients to be admitted to the state's own university hospital in Essen in return for increased payments. In addition, these extra payments had been declared as donations for research purposes, which neither corresponded to the facts nor was legal. Both the Essen public prosecutor's office and the defense appealed against the judgment to the Federal Court of Justice. In July 2011 he rejected the appeal against the Essen judgment.

When the judgment became final, Broelsch also lost his pension entitlement as a civil servant. On October 10, 2011 Broelsch began his prison sentence in the Bielefeld-Senne correctional facility . After serving half of his prison term, Broelsch was released on parole on April 9, 2013.

Awards (excerpt)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Controversial transplant surgeon Broelsch died on the website of the NRZ on February 18, 2019, accessed on May 15, 2019
  2. ↑ a b Hartwig Ammann: Bremer Pfarrerbuch . The pastors, biographical information. Ed .: Church committee of the Bremen Evangelical Church from the Association for Bremen Church History eV Volume 2 . HM Hauschild GmbH , Bremen 1996, ISBN 3-929902-96-6 .
  3. ↑ The German Cancer Research Center and the Bremen Visualization Center of Heinz-Otto Peitgen , with whom Broelsch worked together, developed 3D imaging as preparation for transplants .
  4. ↑ dpa: Former transplant doctor Broelsch died. In: Westfälische Nachrichten. February 18, 2019, accessed February 18, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Broelsch in the open execution? . Peter Lamprecht in: Die Welt . March 14, 2010. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  6. ↑ fraud process; Court sentenced star surgeons to three years in prison . The mirror . March 12, 2010. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  7. ↑ The cashier . Martina Keller in: Die Zeit . S. 8. September 17, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  8. ↑ Transplant surgeon Broelsch is sentenced to prison . Deutsches Ärzteblatt . October 18, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
  9. ↑ WDR Panorama ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Broelsch, Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Broelsch, Christoph Erich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 2019
Place of death Dusseldorf