Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs received a liver transplant about two months ago to treat some ongoing complications from his previous pancreatic cancer:

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

The exact source for the information is not provided, though The Wall Street Journal is reporting it as fact and not rumor. They also state that he is recovering well and is expected to return to Apple at the end of June, though may initially return on a part-time basis.

Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple's CEO in January for a medical leave of absence. Jobs had previously been treated and said to have been cured of pancreatic cancer in 2004.

According to experts cited by The Wall Street Journal, the reason for a liver transplant may have been from the spread of the original pancreatic cancer into the liver. The exact cure rate for this particular condition with a liver transplant seems to be up for debate, although five-year survivals for all causes of liver transplant seems to be around the 75% range.

The report adds some validity to previous rumors that Steve Jobs was receiving medical treatment in Memphis, Tennessee.

Top Rated Comments

zub3qin Avatar
194 months ago
why Tennessee?
TN has one of the lowest waiting times for a liver in the country, according to the WSJ:
"Tennessee isn't known as a magnet for liver transplants. But wait times do appear to be considerably shorter than elsewhere in the country. In 2006, the median number of days from joining the liver waiting list to transplant was 306 nationally. In Tennessee, it was 48 days."

The real scandal is that how did he bypass or even get on the waiting list at all? There are very few organs donated in the US. People that are near death are the first to get livers.... Jobs was sick, but nowhere near death. People far sicker than him die waiting for a liver. Patients wait for years for a liver, typically. Also from the WSJ: "Last year, 1,481 people died awaiting a donor."

Either he got a living donor (someone donated part of their liver to him) OR somehow someone pulled some strings and pushed him up to the head of the waiting list by lying about the severity of his condition (ironically publicly Jobs downplayed the severity of his condition). I don't think he had a living donor since he would not need to move to Tennessee for the surgery and 2 month recovery in that case. The ONLY reason to have the surgery in TN was that he wanted the shortest line to a donated organ-- but even still, I am surprised that he got an organ since he wasn't critically ill.

Also, what is interesting is that a quick google search reveals that this wasn't really a big secret. There were multiple posts in the last few months (prior to today's WSJ revelation) detailing Jobs being treated at Methodist (not St Jude's) Hospital in Memphis, the reported home he was staying in, sighting of his private jet, and even sighting of him at an Indian restaurant (!)

The fact that these details were all posted by bloggers in Memphis during the exact time Jobs was reported to be in Memphis, and actively discussed, suggests that it is all true. Yet nobody reported this either in the media, or on Apple rumor sites. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 15 Pro FineWoven

Apple Reportedly Stops Production of FineWoven Accessories

Sunday April 21, 2024 6:03 am PDT by
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. The lack of ...
Provenance Emulator

PlayStation and SEGA Emulator for iPhone and Apple TV Coming to App Store [Updated]

Friday April 19, 2024 8:29 am PDT by
The lead developer of the multi-emulator app Provenance has told iMore that his team is working towards releasing the app on the App Store, but he did not provide a timeframe. Provenance is a frontend for many existing emulators, and it would allow iPhone and Apple TV users to emulate games released for a wide variety of classic game consoles, including the original PlayStation, SEGA Genesis,...