University Times

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) surgeons report they performed a total of 566 organ transplants last year at UPMC Presbyterian hospital, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, pushing the total transplants performed at the Pittsburgh program since 1979 to more than 12,000. No other center in the world comes close to matching this clinical experience.

Of the 566 transplants performed in 2002, liver transplants accounted for 227, a volume that places UPMC among the top-performing liver transplant programs in the world.

The increase in the number of liver transplants performed at UPMC from the 174 performed in 2001 is due in part to surgeons being more aggressive in obtaining organs that centers elsewhere either cannot match or elect not to use for their local patients.

The number of living donor kidney transplants increased, from 36 in 2001 to 76 in 2002. Heart transplants in both adults and children increased from 41 in 2001 to 54 last year.

A pioneering center for intestinal transplants, UPMC performed 31 transplants involving the small bowel. The lung transplant program performed 49 transplants in 2002, including 28 double-lung transplants, a volume that places it again in the top tier of programs in the United States. 

Year-end transplant figures include:

• Liver: 227 (performed either alone or in combination with other organ transplants; includes five living-donor transplants).

• Kidney: 189 (performed either alone or in combination with other organ transplants; includes 76 living donor transplants).

• Pancreas: 14 (21 kidney/pancreas transplants are included in kidney transplant totals).

• Small bowel: 31 (includes 14 small bowel, one liver/small bowel, two pancreas/small bowel and 14 multivisceral or modified multivisceral transplants).

• Lung: 49 (includes 20 single-lung, 28 double-lung and one living donor lung transplant).

• Heart: 54.

• Heart/lung: 2.