Vanderbilt Transplant Center Performs 739 Life-saving Procedures in 2023

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC) set a new record in 2023 for total solid organ transplants, performing 739 lifesaving procedures among its adult and pediatric organ transplant programs. VTC finished the year as the fifth largest transplant center by volume in the nation.

The 2023 total surpasses VTC’s previous record of 645 transplants in 2021. In 2023, VTC’s lung transplant team accomplished two notable firsts—its first combined lung-kidney transplant and first combined lung-liver transplant.

  • Other records were set in the comprehensive adult and pediatric kidney transplant program (326 kidneys and eight kidney-pancreas procedures) the comprehensive adult and pediatric liver transplant program (169 livers), and the lung transplant program (95 lungs, including two heart-lung procedures.)
  • In the Adult Transplant program, teams performed 319 kidney transplants (including eight kidney-pancreas procedures), 128 heart transplants (including two heart-lung procedures), 152 liver transplants, and 95 lung transplants (including two heart-lung procedures.)
  • Pediatric transplant teams with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt performed 17 liver transplants, 15 heart transplants and 14 kidney transplants.

To learn more about the history of organ transplantation at Vanderbilt, which started with VUMC's first kidney transplant in 1962, read this article from the VUMC Reporter.

 

Members of the team that performed the final transplant of 2023, completed just before midnight on Dec. 31, included, from left, Madelyn Ewing, CST, Kathryn Kraft, MD, Marissa Kuo, MD, Laura Hickman, MD, MS, and Janise Malatesta, RN.