Brief Biography

Yaron Avitzur is the Medical Director of Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplantation in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. Dr. Avitzur graduated in medicine from Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. He completed his Paediatric residency in Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel and was licensed as a Pediatric Gastroenterologist in 2005 after a dual fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Pediatric Academic Multi-Organ Transplantation (PAMOT) at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.
Upon the completion of his fellowship he returned to Israel and joined the Institute of Gastroenterology, Nutrition and Liver Diseases at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel as a senior Pediatric Gastroenterologist. While in Israel he led the establishment of the national pediatric small bowel transplantation program and also cared for children with chronic liver diseases before and after liver transplantation and for children with intestinal failure. Dr. Avitzur was appointed as Medical Director, Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplantation at the Hospital for Sick Children and Assistant Professor of Paediatrics in the University of Toronto in 2009.

Areas of Specialty

Dr. Avitzur’s subspecialty interest and expertise include paediatric liver and intestinal transplantation, and intestinal failure and rehabilitation.

Research Interests

Dr. Avitzur’s research interest and activity focuses on the clinical aspects of short and long term outcome after pediatric liver and small bowel transplantation and on immune deregulation post transplant and its clinical and immunological impact on pediatric recipients of liver and intestinal transplantation. In addition, 

Dr. Avitzur is studying the clinical aspects of intestinal failure and rehabilitation including intestinal failure associated liver disease (IFALD), and the interface between intestinal rehabilitation and transplantation in regards to listing criteria and the intestine transplant waiting list.   

Publications

Bilavski E, Dagan A, Yarden-Bilavski H, Davidovits M, Shapiro R, Weintraub N, Amir J, Avitzur Y. Adrenal insufficiency during physiological stress in children after kidney or liver transplantation. Pediatric Transplantation, 2011.

Lapidus-Krol E, Shapiro R, Amir J, Davidovits M, steinberg R, Mor E, Avitzur Y. The efficacy and safety of valganciclovir vs. oral ganciclovir in the prevention of CMV infection in children after solid organ transplantation. Pediatric Transplantation, 2010: 14(6): 753-760.

Avitzur Y, Grant D. Intestine Transplantation in Children – Update 2010.  Ped Clinics of North America, 2010:57(2):415-31.

Shouval D, Mor E, Avitzur Y, Shamir R, Bar-Nathan N, Steinberg R, Schoenfeld T, Ben-Ari Z, Shapiro R. Living related donor liver transplantation for children with fulminant hepatic failure in Israel. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 2009;48(4):451-5.

Israeli m, Klein T, Sredni B, Avitzur Y, Mor E, Bar-Nathen N, Steinberg R, Dinari G, Shapiro R. Immuknow: a new parameter in immune monitoring of pediatric liver transplantation recipients. Liver Transplantation, 2008;14(6):893-8.

Avitzur Y, Ngan BY, Lao M, Ng VL. Prospective Evaluation of the prevalence and clinical significance of positive autoantibodies after pediatric liver transplantation. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 2007;45(2):222-7.

Nasr A, Avitzur Y, Ng VL, De Silva N, Wales PW. The use of conjugated
hyperbilirubinemia greater than 100 micromol/L as an indicator of irreversible liver disease in infants with short bowel syndrome. Journal of Pediatric Surgery, 2007;42(2):359-62.

Avitzur Y, Galindo-Mata E, Jones NL. Oral vaccination against Helicobacter pylori infection is not effective in mice with Fas ligand deficiency. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 2005;50(12):2300-2306.

Avitzur Y, De Luca E, Cantos M, Jimenez-Rivera C, Fecteau A, Jones NL, Grant D, Ng VL. Health status ten-years after pediatric liver transplantation - Looking beyond the graft. Transplantation, 2004;78:566-573.

Avitzur Y, Jimenez-Rivera C, Fecteau A, Jones NL, Ngan YB, Ng VL. Interstitial granulomatous pneumonitis associated with sirolimus in a child after liver transplantation. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 2003;37:91-94.

Avitzur Y , Singer P, Dagan O, Kozer E, Abramovitch D, Dinari G, Shamir R: Resting energy expenditure in children with cyanotic and noncyanotic congenital heart disease before and after open heart surgery. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 2003;27(1):47-51.