Tampa General Hospital is performing more organ transplants than ever, but officials stress the need for donors is still "overwhelming."
The hospital’s Transplant Institute set a record in 2023 with 756 transplants and was the fourth-largest in the country, according to Dr. Kiran Dhanireddy, vice president of TGH’s Transplant Institute.
So far, this year is on pace to be even busier, he said.
“I think there’s a growing awareness that organ donation is an opportunity to save a life,” said Dhanireddy.
More than 12 million Floridians are enrolled in Florida’s organ and tissue donor registry, a number that the nonprofit Donate Life Florida reports has been steadily increasing in recent years.
Technology is fueling the increase
Innovative technology known as organ perfusion is helping Tampa General expand its donor pool.
Traditionally, Dhanireddy said medical workers transport organs for donation by putting them in preservation solution and shipping them off in coolers. More recently, the hospital has been using perfusion machines that use sophisticated pumps to keep blood flowing to organs while they await transplantation.
“For lungs that allows them to exchange gas and oxygenate the blood, for hearts they actually pump while they're outside the body and the liver does its magic, which is to detoxify the blood,” said Dhanireddy, who added the institute is also using perfusion for kidneys, the most common organ involved in transplants.
The technology keeps organs viable longer, so they can travel further distances and Dhanireddy’s team gets more time to examine the organ and ensure it's a good fit for transplant.
“So this allows us to use older donors, donors that have medical conditions, and traditionally those donors have not been acceptable for transplantation,” he said. “So this has allowed us to grow the pool of available organs, which then allows us to take care of more people.”
Challenges with the transplant system persist
Still, more than 5,000 Floridians are on the national transplant waitlist. Tampa General has nearly 1,000 people awaiting transplantation, said Dhanireddy.
The southeastern U.S. is a hotspot for many health problems that can damage organs.
“Hypertension, diabetes, liver disease, lung failure, heart failure associated with those chronic conditions, all lead to this very overwhelming need for organ transplantation in our community,” said Dhanireddy.
There are inequities in accessing organ transplants. People of color and people with low incomes are less likely to be referred for transplantation. They may also have a harder time traveling or taking time off for surgeries.
There are also flaws in how the national organ donation system is run, which led the federal government this year to announce plans to overhaul it.
The vast majority of people on transplant waitlists require kidney donations, followed by liver. Most transplants involve deceased donors, but some can be done with living donors.
TGH has the largest living donor kidney transplant program in the Southeast, performing 96 of these transplants in 2023, according to Dhanireddy.
Last year, the hospital also started doing living donor liver transplants. Whereas kidney transplants involve a donor giving one of their two kidneys to the recipient, liver transplants involve the donor giving a portion of their liver.
“What living donation allows us to do is avoid the long wait for deceased donor transplant, and during that waiting period people are getting sicker from their chronic diseases,” said Dhanireddy.
“This allows us to plan and optimize the patients, do the operation in the middle of the day when it’s the safest and we have the most expert people in our team available, and then lead to really good outcomes for both the donor and the recipient.”
How to become an organ donor
Dhanireddy acknowledges some people may be hesitant about living donation but assures the hospital’s priority is donor safety.
“So we do an intensive and thorough medical evaluation to make sure that there are not any additional risks, and also ensure that after they’ve donated, that they have a place to call home if they have complications,” he said.
You can learn more about becoming a living kidney donor on Tampa General’s website or by calling (813) 844-5669. There is also an online questionnaire you can fill out to see if you would make a good fit.
To learn more about the living liver donor program, visit this page or call (813) 844-7137.
If you’re interested in registering to become an organ, eye and tissue donor after your die, you can learn more on Donate Life Florida’s website and fill out this form to sign up for Florida’s registry. You can also do so when renewing your driver’s license at your local DMV.
To join the national registry, visit RegisterMe.org.
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