Since our transplant program first began in 1967, our team of experts at the Ohio State Comprehensive Transplant Center has continued to drive innovation through advanced research and excellent patient care. As central Ohio’s only adult comprehensive transplant center, we have performed more than 10,500 solid organ transplants. Learn more about how Ohio State is leading the way in organ transplantation.

Celebrating 10,000 Solid Organ Transplants in 2019
53 Years of Lifesaving Organ Transplants
Since our transplant program first began in 1967, the Comprehensive Transplant Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has become a world leader in lifesaving care and transplant research, providing heart, lung, kidney, liver, pancreas and kidney-pancreas transplants.

Our established team of specialty trained transplant experts includes:
- Disease specialists
- Transplant surgeons
- Infectious disease physicians
- Transplant coordinators
- Advanced practice providers
- Social workers
- Psychiatrists
- Transplant pharmacists
Being an academic medical center allows us access to the latest treatments and clinical trials of new immunosuppressive drugs and anti-rejection therapies. Our current standard of care is using prednisone-free immunosuppressive medications, a regimen available to about one quarter of all patients in the United States.
Excellence and Experience
- #10 transplant program, by volume, in the United States in 2019
- 10,500 solid organ transplants since 1967 - a milestone achieved by less than 10% of all U.S. transplant centers
- 600 organ transplants performed each year
- Recognized as one of America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for the 28th consecutive year with 9 nationally ranked specialties
- Multidisciplinary research collaboration with Nationwide Children’s Hospital at the Center for the Epidemiological Study of Organ Failure and Transplantation (CESOT) to improve outcomes in transplantation worldwide
- Members of the Acute Liver Failure Study Group, a collaborative network of 28 hospitals that have studied more than 3,000 cases of acute liver failure
- One of the largest and most experienced kidney-pancreas centers in the world
- Ability to perform living donor transplants of both the kidney and liver
- Only experts in central Ohio to perform Auto Islet cell transplantation to cure end state pancreatitis, which left untreated leads to diabetes
Transplant Firsts at Ohio State

1967 — Living donor kidney transplant (Ohio State’s first organ transplant)

1983 — One of the first centers in the U.S. to study cyclosporine, an immunosuppressant that revolutionized transplantation

1984 — Liver transplant (first in Ohio)

1985 — Pancreas transplant

1988 — Combined kidney-pancreas transplant

1986 — Heart transplant

1998 — Lung transplant

1999 — Double lung transplant

1999 — Laparoscopic kidney donor surgery

2005 — Combined heart-double lung transplant kidney paired donation

2006 — One of very few sites in North America approved to process pancreatic islet cells for transplantation that may cure type 1 diabetes

2006 — Fourth institution in the country certified to implant the temporary CardioWest™ Total Artificial Heart, which serves as a bridge to transplant

2011 — Islet cell transplant

2011 — Six-way kidney transplant – largest living donor kidney transplant chain performed in Ohio to date

2016 — Lung-kidney transplant (only 37 performed is U.S. since 1995)

2016 — One of only 20 centers nationwide chosen to participate in the NOVEL clinical trial with XVIVO Perfusion, potentially doubling the donor pool of lungs for transplantation

2017 — Split liver transplant

2018 — Living donor liver transplant (one of two locations able to perform in Ohio)

2018 — One of a select few transplant centers currently involved in the normo thermic ex-vivo liver perfusion clinical phase study

2019 — Heart-liver transplant

2020 — Eight-way kidney transplant – largest single-institution living donor kidney transplant chain performed in Ohio to date
Healthy State Alliance (HSA) Increases Access to Transplant Care

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Research and Academics

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