Liver transplant patients at the University Hospital Center for Advanced Liver Diseases and Transplantation have a 98.7% chance of one-year survival, the highest of any center of its kind nationwide, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

University Hospital shares the top spot with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, which has the same estimated one-year survival rate.

The liver transplant center at University Hospital and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School opened in 1989 as the first in the state and is now one of 61 such centers nationally. Physicians at the center have performed more than 1,500 liver transplant surgeries, including over 80 transplants in the last two years alone.

The SRTR is operated by the Chronic Disease Research Group, a division of the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, and is a federally supported program.

“This designation reinforces our position as one of the outstanding liver transplant centers in the country, and reinforces our role as New Jersey’s public hospital and a northeast healthcare powerhouse,” said Dr. Shereef Elnahal, president and CEO of University Hospital in a prepared statement. “Lives are literally being saved because of the Center for Advanced Liver Diseases and Transplantation, the leadership of Drs. Pyrsopoulos and Guarrera, our dedicated team members, and the active support of our partners at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.”