Kareem Mohamed Abu-Elmagd

Kareem Mohamed Abu-Elmagd
Born	Kareem Mohamed Abu-Elmagd, June 16, 1952[1] Mansoura, Egypt
Nationality	Egyptian American
Occupation	Professor of surgery
Children	Adam and Ahmed.[2]
Medical career
Field	Transplant Surgery, Gut Rehabilitation
Institutions	Case Western Reserve University - Cleveland Clinic
Sub-specialties	Intestinal/multivisceral transplantation Gut rehabilitation Portal hypertensive surgery

Kareem Abu-Elmagd (born June 16, 1952) is an Egyptian-American surgeon practicing abdominal organ transplantation and digestive system surgery.^[3][4] He is best known for development of clinical intestinal and multivisceral transplantation and its subsequent approval by Medicare.^[5] He served as the president of the Intestinal Transplant Association.^[6]

History[]

Abu-Elmagd was born in Mansoura, the capital of Dakahlia Governorate in 1952.^[7] In 1976 he obtained his medical degree and trained surgery at the school of medicine Mansoura University. In 1987 earned his PhD in liver diseases and portal hypertensive surgery through a joint collaboration between Emory University in Atlanta and Mansoura University.^[8] In 1989, joined University of Pittsburgh to obtain clinical fellowship in transplantation surgery.^[9] In 2001, he was promoted to professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.^[6]

In 1989, he was introduced to the field of organ transplantation by the late professor Thomas E. Starzl. , the father of modern transplantation.^[10] after that in 1990, Abu-Elmagd and his colleagues launched an intestinal and multivisceral transplant program which performed more than 450 intestine transplants surgery.^[11] As of 2020, Abu-Elmagd is professor of surgery at Case-Western Reserve University and the director of the gut rehabilitation and transplantation center at the Cleveland clinic.^[12][13][14] With more than 400 peer review scientific publications, as of 2020, his work has been cited close to 20,000 times between 2009 and 2017.^[15]

Professional career and contributions[]

Abu-Elmagd participated in performing the first successful intestinal transplantation under tacrolimus in 1990 at the University of Pittsburgh^[16] Later being a participant in the establishment of the clinical utility of tacrolimus in 1991.^[17] He was a part of the team which demonstrated the immune-protective effect of the concomitantly transplanted liver and the deleterious effect of DSA on the visceral allograft.^[18] His research led to the establishment of Medicare coverage for intestinal and multivisceral transplant in the United States.^[19] Abu-Elmagd pioneered or introduced surgical techniques and procedures, for correction of intestinal malrotation in children and adults, replacing the historic Ladd's procedure.^{[20][21][22][23]} Another technique developed by him utilized the patient's own gut for the effective management of gut failure, eliminating the need for intravenous nutrition commonly called TPN. An algorithm with a predictive model was established to guide clinicians, health care providers, payers and patients to achieve the best and most cost effective outcome, eliminating the need for gut transplantation.^{[better source needed][24]}

Abu-Elmagd is the founder of the “Kareem Abu-Elmagd Transplant and Gut Foundation” national institute for patient care, clinical training, medical education and research in Egypt.^[25][26]

In 2019 he performed a pro bono operation for a 24-year-old woman from Bangladesh who had been suffering severe abdominal pain for a long time, without any known diagnosis. Her case involved reorganizing her intestines.^[27]

References[]