Live-donor transplants at UPMC jumped from 54 in 2012 to 120 in 2018, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.
In contrast, deceased donor transplants at Pittsburgh-based UPMC have declined by about 30 percent over the past decade, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
A stagnant supply of organs and increased competition from other transplant centers prompted UPMC to make its living-donor services an "organizational focus." The system is one of the few in the country to turn away from deceased donor transplantation, even launching a marketing campaign to raise awareness about living-donor liver transplants in September 2018.
Living-donor surgery is not "a last resort" or "experimental," Abhinav Humar, MD, UPMC's chief of transplant surgery, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Living donation gives physicians more preparation time for surgery and the ability to comprehensively screen donors, Dr. Humar said. The transplants can also be performed before the recipient is too sick to recover, increasing the chances that the transplant will be successful.
However, living-donor transplants expose a healthy person to the risks of elective surgery, such as infections, hernias, blood clots and wound complications.
UPMC's decline in deceased donor transplants has caused a total transplant decline of 38 percent. Despite this, Laura Aguiar, principal and managing partner of Transplant Solutions, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that hospital chains cannot solely rely on organs from deceased donors if they want programs to grow.