UT Medical Center’s Center for Transplant Services is home to the only kidney transplant program in the East Tennessee region and has performed approximately 800 transplants since 1985. The medical center has offered patients the opportunity of a kidney transplant for the treatment of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) since 1985 with the first transplant (sister to brother) being done successfully on Feb. 28, 1985. Since the early years of the program, the program has gone from performing an average of 18 surgeries the first year to 47 in 2000 and 57 in 2004.

With increased education and awareness of the shortage of cadaver kidney donors, the program has grown to include approximately 40 percent of its kidney transplants being done with a living donor. There were 12 living donors in 2004.

In February 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded UT Medical Center with the Health Resources and Services Administration a National Medal of Honor for Organ Donation. As one of just four Tennessee hospitals to receive this award, UT Medical Center was recognized for its work in increasing organ donation rates.

The Center for Transplant Services at the medical center continues to provide the opportunity of cadaver and living donor kidney transplants but also has expanded to include pancreas transplantation—a natural expansion of the program because many diabetic kidney transplant patients will also need a pancreas transplant.

The transplant program at UT Medical Center sees a 90 percent transplant success rate—one of the highest success rates in the country.

Click here to read the Facts About Transplantation.