Medical Expertise

Liver and Kidney Transplantation
Hepatobiliary Surgery
Liver and Biliary Resections
Advanced GI Oncology Surgery
Advanced Laparoscopic Solid Organ Surgery
General Surgery
Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Cholangiocarcinoma

Hospital Affiliation

University Hospital, Newark

Insurance Participation

Insurance Participation: with Provider Number (where applicable)
The information below is subject to change and should not be relied upon until after it is verified with the insurance company. In addition, psychiatric providers should be contacted directly for information on their participation with managed care and insurance companies.

Aetna, Inc.

AmeriGroup

AmeriHealth of NJ

America's Choice Provider Network (ACPN)

Clover Health Plans

Devon Health Services/ULLICO

Horizon BCBS Managed Care

Horizon NJ Health

Horizon NJ Total Care(HNJH)

Horizon PPO Network

Medicaid

Medicare

MultiPlan

Prime Health Services, Inc.

Qual Care HMO

Qual Care PPO

Three Rivers Provider Network

UHC Comm/Oxford

United Healthcare Community Plan (formerly AmeriChoice of NJ, Inc.)

WellCare Health Plans

Overview

Keri E. Lunsford MD, PhD, FACS is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and a liver
transplant and hepatobiliary surgeon on faculty at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
and a member of the Center for Immunity and Inflammation. Dr. Lunsford
received MD and PhD degrees from The Ohio State University as part of the Medical
Scientist Training Program, and she completed general surgery residency at Duke
University followed by fellowship in multi-organ abdominal transplantation
and hepatobiliary surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is
certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Society of Transplant
Surgeons. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers, she was on faculty at
Houston Methodist Hospital where she played a key role in the groundbreaking protocol
for liver transplant for intrahepatic cholaniocarcinoma. Her clinical interests include liver
transplant oncology, simultaneous liver kidney transplantation, and liver transplant futility.
She has an active translational transplant immunology research lab. Dr. Lunsford has
received funding from the Association of Women Surgeons, the NIH, the ASTS, and the
NJHF for her translational research in the mechanism and impact of pre-transplant
immune dysfunction in liver transplant recipient outcomes. She serves on several
national and international committees and is well-published in the field of transplant
surgery and transplant immunology.

Education

MD, 2007, The Ohio StateUniversity of Medicine
PHD, 2005, The Ohio State Univesity
BS, 1999, Miami University

Licensure & Certification

Medical Licensure
New Jersey

Curriculum Vitae

View CV

Relevant Publications

Lunsford, Keri E., Tom X. Liu, Guergana G. Panayotova, Flavio Paterno, Arpit Amin, Lloyd Brown, James V. Guarrera. Implantation of Hypothermic Machine Perfused Kidneys Improves Patient and Allograft Survival in High Acuity Patients Undergoing Combined Liver-Kidney Transplantation. Surgery. Manuscript Submitted.

Panayotova, Guergana, Flavio Paterno, Mark Galan, Sopio Simonishvili, Yong Qin, Matthew McCarty, Lloyd Brown, Arpit Amin, Keri E Lunsford, James V Guarrera. Hypothermic Oxygenated Machine Perfusion (HMP-O2) Abrogates Early Inflammatory Markers and Improves Post-Reperfusion Parameters in Liver Transplantation Compared to Static Cold Storage (SCS). Transplantation. Manuscript Submitted.

Eletta, Olanrewaju, Guergana G. Panayotova, Keri E. Lunsford. Liver Transplant for Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma. Surgical Clinics on Liver Transplantation and Transplantation Oncology. Shimul Shah ed. In Press.

Lunsford, Keri E., Akshay Shetty, David W. Victor, Jane V. Thomas, Lisette Theriot, John Ontiveros, Duc T. M. Nguyen, Edward A. Graviss, Ashish Saharia, Constance M. Mobley, Mark J. Hobeika, Julie Corkrean, Joseph S. Galati, Victor Ankoma-Sey, Chuckwuma I. Egwim, Sudha Kodali, Robert S. McFadden, A. Osama Gaber, R. Mark Ghobrial. Long-Term Outcomes for Early Liver Transplantation for Acute Alcoholic Hepatitis Compared with Alcohol Related Cirrhosis: A Single Center Analysis. Transplantation Direct. Manuscript Submitted.

Wakil A, Niazi M, Lunsford KE, Pyrsopoulos N. Future Approaches and Therapeutic Modalities for Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure. Clin Liver Dis. 2023 Aug;27(3):777-790. doi: 10.1016/j.cld.2023.03.017. Epub 2023 Apr 27. PMID: 37380297.

Andacoglu O, Izzy M, Adelmann D, Aguilera V, Becchetti C, Berenguer M, Berlakovich GA, Ghosh S, Giorgakis E, Kemmer N, Lunsford KE, Montasser IF, Montenovo MI, Mrzljak A, Pai SL, Scalera I, Selzner N. Addressing the Burden and Management Strategies for Disparities and Inequities Among Liver Transplant Professionals: The ILTS Experience. Transpl Int. 2023 Jun 2;36:11240. doi: 10.3389/ti.2023.11240. PMID: 37334014; PMCID: PMC10274575.

Panayotova GG*, Lunsford KE* (co-first authors), Quillin RC 3rd, Rana A, Agopian VG, Lee-Riddle GS, Markovic D, Paterno F, Griesemer AD, Amin A, Alonso D, Rocca JP, Borja-Cacho D, Hernandez-Alejandro R, Fung JJ, Pelletier SJ, Shah SA, Guarrera JV. Portable hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion for organ preservation in liver transplantation (PILOT): A randomized, open-label, clinical trial. Hepatology. 2023 Dec 13. doi: 10.1097/HEP.0000000000000715. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38090880.

Bodek Daniel D. Matthew M. Everwine, Keri E. Lunsford, Nneoma Okoronkwo, Pvan A. Patel, Nikolaos Pyrsopoulos. Racial Disparities in Liver Transplantation for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Analysis of the National Inpatient Sample from 2007 TO 2014. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology. 2023 Mar 1;57(3):311-316. doi: 10.1097/MCG.0000000000001675. PMID: 35180149.

Medina-Morales JE, Panayotova GG, Nguyen D T, Graviss EA, Prakash GS, Marsh J, Simonishvili S, Shah Y, Ayorinde T, Qin Y, Jin L, Zoupou T, Minze LJ, Paterno F, Amin A, Lee-Riddle G, Ghobrial RM, Guarrera JV, Lunsford KE. Pre-transplant Biomarkers of Immune Dysfunction Improve Risk Assessment of Post-transplant Mortality Compared to Conventional Clinical Risk Scores. Preprint (Version 1) available at Research Square. 2023. Epub 05 February 2023. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2548184/v1. Frontiers in Transplantation. In Revision.

McMillan, Robert R, Milind Javle, Sudha Kodali, Joy Nolte Fong, Linda Moore, Ashish Saharia, Constance Mobley, Mark J. Hobeika, Keri E. Lunsford, David W Victor, Akshay Shetty, Robert McFadden, Maen Abdelrahim, Kirk Heyne, Ahmed Kaseb, Mukul Divatia, Duc T. Nguyen, Edward A Graviss, A. Osama Gaber, Jean-Nicolas Vauthey, R Mark Ghobrial. Survival following liver transplantation for locally advanced, unresectable intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. American Journal of Transplantation. 2022 Mar; 22 (3):823-832. Doi 10.111/ajt.16906. PMID: 34856069.

Course List

MED9525K

Liver Disease & Transplant

Liver Transplant Research

Liver Transplant for Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma

Experience last 35 years has generally excluded liver transplant as a treatment for
intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma; however, experience with hilar cholangiocarcinoma
has identified pretransplant radiation and chemotherapy strategies which improve
relapse-free and overall survival outcomes. Recently we reported that pre-transplant
chemotherapy combined with prolonged tumor stability of greater than six months can
also yield excellent overall and relapse-free outcomes for intrahepatic
cholangiocarcinoma (Lunsford, et al. Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. 2018
May; 3(5): 337-348). These preliminary outcomes have prompted a current multi-center
investigation into the potential to expand current liver transplant efforts for the treatment
of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, a disease in which few other alternatives offer the
possibility of a cure.

Liver Transplant Immunologic Frailty

Due to organ shortage, livers are transplanted in order of recipient medical urgency;
however, ethical principles dictate avoidance of futile transplantation. Due to imbalance
in supply and demand for organs, illness severity (categorized by MELD score) has
drastically increased. MELD does not correlate well with risk of death post-transplant;
thus, better metrics to evaluate risk of mortality are necessary. The most common cause
of death early after liver transplant relates to consequences of an immune system which
is frail or dysfunctional prior to transplant. In pre-transplant cirrhotics, immune
frailty may relate to metabolic deficiencies or T cell exhaustion and may affect liver
transplant outcomes.

Our laboratory currently evaluates the pre-transplant state of immunologic frailty which
potentially results from cirrhosis-related alterations in recipient metabolism, including T
cell metabolic dysfunction, T cell exhaustion, and alterations to the innate and adaptive
immune activation, proliferation, and function. We have developed a pre-transplant set of
biomarkers which can stratify patients at risk for adverse outcomes such as infection,
malignancy, and death following liver transplantation, and we aim to develop therapies to
prevent such consequences long-term.