Vanderbilt Health kidney transplant surgeons are now the first in Tennessee, and some of a handful in the Southeast, to use a new Food and Drug Administration-approved portable hypothermic perfusion technology designed to preserve and transport donor kidneys.
The adoption of the Paragonix KidneyVault Renal Perfusion System is the latest advancement in Vanderbilt Health’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology in the organ transplantation process.
By pioneering new approaches, Vanderbilt Health, which houses one of the oldest and largest kidney transplant programs in the country, can serve more patients, including high-risk patients who may not be candidates at other medical centers.
“We used the technology for transport and pumping and were satisfied with the overall feel and appearance of the kidney at the time of reperfusion,” said Christian Crannell, MD, assistant professor of Surgery in the Division of Kidney & Pancreas Transplantation. “We also appreciated knowing where the kidney was during transport and knowing the organ temperature.”
More than 106,000 patients are currently on the national transplant waitlist in the U.S., with 86% waiting for a kidney. Expanding donor pools and optimizing available resources is critical.
Hypothermic machine perfusion has shown significant benefits for kidney transplants.
“Paragonix is committed to expanding access to donor organs and improving patient outcomes, and we’re thrilled to see Vanderbilt Health introduce KidneyVault to its community,” said Lisa Anderson, PhD, president of Paragonix Technologies. “Innovations like KidneyVault enable transplant centers to accept organs from greater distances and with more logistical complexity than ever before. We look forward to empowering the clinical community to maximize the use of Paragonix devices, giving every donor kidney the best chance to reach a patient in need.”
