Congratulations to the Cleveland Clinic for it's amazing achievement in advancing lung transplantation. Since this story was written they performed two more transplants as of Oct.15th bringing the total to 131 for the year. With two more months left in the year they project to complete more than 160 lung transplants before January 1st.
As the program has expanded, it continues to have wait times well below the national average. According to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, 33.7 percent of Cleveland Clinic patients received a new lung within 30 days of being placed on the waiting list, compared with 8.4 percent nationally. Within one year, 90.3 percent of Cleveland Clinic patients receive a transplant, compared to 40.9 percent nationally.
by Mary Vanac MedCity News
CLEVELAND -- With more than two months still remaining in 2009, the Cleveland Clinic has already transplanted more lungs in one year than any other transplant center in the world.
On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the Cleveland Clinic Lung Transplantation and Heart-Lung Transplantation Program performed its 129th lung transplant - 124 single-lung or double-lung transplants, two heart-lung transplants and three liver-lung transplants.
The previous annual record (set by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) in lung transplants was 128 in 2007. At the current pace, Cleveland Clinic officials expect to reach more than160 lung transplants by the end of this year.
The increasing number of lung transplants has been part of a concerted effort to expand patient eligibility guidelines, improve collaboration among Cleveland Clinic Institutes and accept patients with complex cases who are among the sickest of the sick.
"The Clinic program is gaining a reputation of accepting patients that my have been refused candidacy at another program and now has a firmly established track record of good outcomes with high risk cases," said Marie Budev, D.O., MPH., Medical Director for the program. "It's very rare that we decline a patient and there is an honest sadness when we do. They are truly like a part of our family."
Cleveland Clinic's Lung Transplantation and Heart-Lung Transplantation Program is a multidisciplinary collaboration which includes transplant surgeons, pulmonologists, infectious disease specialists, pharmacologists, nurses, social workers, physical therapists and transplant coordinators.
More patients enlisted into the transplant program means that the need for organs has increased as well. To meet the demand, Cleveland Clinic has broadened its reach, traveling up to 3,000 miles to secure lungs. Cleveland Clinic is also accepting and improving lungs that other centers may have otherwise turned down.
Another factor in the transplant program's growth has been a streamlining of the entire process, from getting evaluated, listed and then transplanted. "There are still people dying while waiting for a lung," said Kenneth McCurry, M.D., a world-renowned Cardiothoracic Surgeon, who joined Cleveland Clinic in January, 2009.
"More can be done. More donors can be utilized than are currently being utilized. More patients can receive lungs than are currently receiving them. This year, nearly half of our transplant recipients were turned away elsewhere."
Since 2006, the annual volume of Cleveland Clinic's Lung Transplantation and Heart-Lung Transplantation Program has more than doubled, from 64 transplants in 2006 to 129 through less than 10 months of 2009.
As the program has expanded, it continues to have wait times well below the national average. According to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, 33.7 percent of Cleveland Clinic patients received a new lung within 30 days of being placed on the waiting list, compared with 8.4 percent nationally. Within one year, 90.3 percent of Cleveland Clinic patients receive a transplant, compared to 40.9 percent nationally.
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