2024 was a memorable year for transplantation innovations, from "domino" heart transplants to genetically edited pig organ xenotransplants.
For transplant centers at Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health and Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center, clinicians marked new milestones:
- With 889 transplants, Tampa General completed the most procedures of any U.S. transplant center in 2024. The TGH Transplant Institute completed procedures on 500 kidneys (including 110 living donor kidneys), 279 livers (including five living donor livers), 51 hearts, 42 lungs, 14 pancreas and kidney, and three heart and lung.
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center set a world record by performing 174 adult and pediatric heart transplants in 2024. The center transplanted 36% more hearts that year compared with 2023. Plus, "more than 500 patients were referred to Vanderbilt for transplant consideration from more than 15 U.S. states, including many patients considered too high risk for transplant at other programs," the hospital said.
- Intermountain's adult transplant program marked an institutional record in 2024 with 489 successful organ transplants. The system said it also has some of the shortest wait times in the nation, averaging 109 days between active listing and kidney transplant — other programs have waitlists of three to five years — and 22 days between listing and liver transplant.