Transplant

October 8, 2020

COVID patient’s heart-lung transplant is world’s first

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has performed the world’s first dual heart-lung transplant of a COVID-19 patient.

By Matt Batcheldor
October 1, 2020

Transplant program reaches milestone 10,000th procedure

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has completed its 10,000th organ transplant, a monumental achievement representing nearly 60 years of life-saving work.

By Matt Batcheldor
September 8, 2020

The police officer needed a kidney transplant. The donor turned out to be very familiar to him — he had arrested her numerous times.

He had been a cop for four decades. She had been featured on “Alabama’s Most Wanted.”

By Matt Batcheldor
August 26, 2020

Kidney transplant patient returns home to joyous reverse parade

Lee Foster’s friends and neighbors smiled, waved, honked and enjoyed cake pops

By Matt Batcheldor
Members of the heart transplant perfusion and recovery team pose with the TransMedics system used to preserve organs during transport. From left are Ashish Shah, MD, Harry Moneypenny, CCP, LCP, Matthew Warhoover, MS, CCP, LCP, Jordan Hoffman, MD, Kyle Rider, CCP, Joey Lepore, RN, CCP, LCP, and Marina Mailyan, MS, CCP, LCP.
August 26, 2020

Four heart transplants performed in whirlwind 48 hours

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center’s cardiac surgeons transplanted four hearts in one 48-hour stretch in August, thanks to VUMC’s perfusion and organ recovery teams traveling more than 4,000 miles across the country to obtain the donor organs.

By Matt Batcheldor
Piper Davis is one of three single-ventricle patients who have received new hearts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
August 12, 2020

Congenital heart patient receives unexpected transplant

For years, doctors told Piper Davis it was impossible to have a heart transplant. She was born with just one ventricle, or pumping chamber, instead of two. A generation ago, such patients didn’t survive into adulthood.

By Matt Batcheldor
July 28, 2020

Post-transplant complication

Vanderbilt researchers conducted the largest analysis to date of a heart complication in children following stem cell transplant. The findings may help guide screening practices to improve outcomes.
By Leigh MacMillan
July 13, 2020

Human lungs rejected for transplant recovered using novel technique

A multidisciplinary team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Columbia University has demonstrated that injured human donor lungs declined for transplant can be recovered by cross-circulation between the human lung and a xenogeneic host.
By Matt Batcheldor
June 8, 2020

Vanderbilt Transplant Center sets monthly record

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center performed 73 transplants in May, setting a Medical Center record for the most transplants in a month. Sixteen of those were heart transplants — also a monthly record — cementing VUMC’s status as the busiest heart transplant center in the country.
By Matt Batcheldor
May 27, 2020

Forbes named new chief of Division of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation

Rachel Forbes, MD, MBA, associate professor of Surgery, has been appointed chief of the Division of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation in the Department of Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, effective June 1.
By Jill Clendening
May 11, 2020

Grateful kidney transplant patient donates masks to VUMC

“I was really excited to have the opportunity to do something for those who had done so much for me."
By Jessica Pasley
April 30, 2020

Rehab technique may help increase donor lung supply

A new technique shows the potential to increase the supply of donor lungs by rehabilitating those organs previously considered too damaged for transplant.
By Matt Batcheldor
February 28, 2020

VUMC uses novel transplant technique to revive donor hearts that had stopped beating

In the first such procedures in Tennessee, Vanderbilt University Medical Center has successfully used technology to bring two donor hearts that stopped beating back to life before transplanting them into patients.
By Matt Batcheldor