XQ's, If you're interested following the links to more up to date info.
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7
Patients and medical professionals may call 1-800-533-UPMC (8762) for more information.
Telephone:
412-647-3555
Fax:
412-624-3184
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH MEDICAL CENTER
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Transplant Milestones at the University of Pittsburgh 1981-2001
The University of Pittsburgh's transplant programs are internationally renowned for their far-reaching influence on the entire field of transplantation. The clinical and research activities of 1981, the year that transplant pioneer Thomas E. Starzl, M.D., Ph.D. <../../Bios/BioStarzl.htm> , performed Pittsburgh's first liver transplants, created the foundation for what would become the largest liver transplant program in the world and elevated already existing heart and kidney transplant programs to national and international stature. Soon thereafter, Pittsburgh was the only center to transplant all organs, earning the moniker "Transplant Capital of the World." In 20 years, more than 11,300 transplants have been performed at UPMC Presbyterian <http://Presbyterian.upmc.com> , Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, by far the most of any center in the world.
A large percentage of the world's surgeons and physicians have been trained at the
University of Pittsburgh <http://www.pitt.edu> , and its programs continue to attract clinicians from other centers seeking to learn the Pittsburgh model. In many ways, the University of Pittsburgh has defined the field, from surgical technique, to nursing care, to the life-long management of patients. And just as significant have been parallel advances with respect to organ procurement and donation practices.
The advances made in the early ?80s by Dr. Starzl and colleagues also spawned two decades of significant advances and pioneering work by university faculty and clinical staff. These scientific and clinical accomplishments are among transplantation's most important milestones. Following are some highlights:
Thomas Starzl leads the team that performs Pittsburgh's first liver transplants. Thirty transplants are performed that year, the first at Presbyterian-University Hospital on Feb. 26, 1981. The first successful adult is Thomas Burke, then 26, who is transplanted on July 12, 1981, and today is alive and well. The first child transplanted is 2-year-old Todd McNeely, now a young adult, who is transplanted on May 9, 1981.
A UPMC anesthesiologist invents a rapid infusion system that allows rapid delivery of large amounts of blood during surgery. It is now the standard in all transplant operations.
1982
The University of Pittsburgh performs its first heart/lung transplants.
1983
Clinical experience at the University of Pittsburgh in large part influences the decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve cyclosporine, which leads to a proliferation of transplant centers around the world and an influx of surgeons seeking to be trained in Pittsburgh.
The world's first multivisceral transplant is performed at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
1984
Stormie Jones undergoes the world's first heart and liver transplant on Feb. 14 at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. She is the first to undergo heart and liver transplantation for familial hypercholesterolemia and helps to define the underlying defects associated with this disease.
Dr. Starzl leads efforts that result in a National Institute of Health Consensus Conference that approves liver transplantation as an accepted treatment for end-stage liver disease.
1985
University of Pittsburgh surgeons begin performing single lung transplants.
Presbyterian Hospital is the world's second center to implant the Jarvik-7 artificial heart as a bridge to transplant and the first to discharge a patient after successful device implant and organ transplantation.
1986
University of Pittsburgh researchers begin work to develop a new anti-rejection agent called FK-506.
1987
UPMC surgeons are among the first to implant the Novacor Left Ventricular Assist Device.
The UPMC becomes the first Medicare-approved liver transplant center.
1988
UPMC begins performing double lung transplants.
1989
University of Pittsburgh researchers announce clinical results of the first 111 patients to receive FK506 to control organ rejection. It is found to be more powerful than cyclosporine with fewer side effects. Findings will eventually improve survival rates for all organ transplants, allow successful transplantation of intestines and improve the quality of life of children.
University of Pittsburgh surgeons open the nation's first liver transplant program for U.S. veterans at what is now called the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.
1990
A 15-year-old girl receives the first successful transplant of pancreatic islets, the cells that produce insulin, as part of a radical "cluster" transplant. She is insulin free until her death from cancer five years later, the longest of any islets recipient.
UPMC surgeons begin performing intestinal transplants more routinely and amass the world's first successful series of transplants of the small intestine. A patient with a Novacor Left Ventricular Assist Device is the world's first patient to be discharged with an implanted device to await human organ transplantation outside the hospital. MCI founder and CEO William G. McGowan makes a gift to the UPMC that establishes the McGowan Center for Artificial Organ Development. He had undergone a heart transplant at UPMC in 1987.
1991
Surgeons perform a four-organ multivisceral transplant on an adult who remains alive today, making him the world's longest surviving multiple organ transplant recipient.
1992
UPMC surgeons perform the world's first baboon-to-human liver transplant in a 35-year-old man. He lives for 71 days.
Dr. Starzl finds clues to organ acceptance in patients who were transplanted up to 29 years ago. He establishes a theory involving chimerism, the co-existence of donor and recipient cells, which serves to change the field's conventional way of thinking. UPMC nurses establish the International Transplant Nurses Society.
1993
UPMC researchers lay the foundation for what later becomes the only clinical trial of its kind of a novel aerosol spray that delivers cyclosporine directly to the lungs of transplant patients.
1994
FK506, the drug developed by University of Pittsburgh researchers, receives FDA approval.
University of Pittsburgh researchers show for the first time that not all transplant patients require life-long anti-rejection drug treatment by successfully weaning several patients off immunosuppressant drugs.
1995
UPMC initiates the current pancreas transplant program.
1996
The University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute is renamed in honor of Dr. Starzl.
1997
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center receives Italian government approval to establish a unique partnership with two regional hospitals in Palermo, Sicily that is to perform organ transplants and provide other specialized services.
1998
Researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh begin the world's first trial that involves delivering donor bone marrow into the thymus during heart transplantation as a means to induce tolerance.
1999
Dr. Starzl is called the most cited scientist in the field of clinical medicine, a measure of his work's lasting utility and influence, by the Institute for Scientific Information.
UPMC's Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Specialized Therapies in Palermo, Sicily, performs its first liver transplant, the first in that region.
2000
UPMC surgeons travel to Israel to participate in the world's first implant of a new left ventricular assist system called the HeartMate II, which was co-developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Center for Artificial Organ Development. UPMC is to lead the U.S. trial.
UPMC surgeons report what is believed to be the first case of a patient with ishcemic cardiomyopathy to completely recover while on a heart assist device meant to be a bridge to transplant. The U.S. Health Care Finance Administration announces Medicare will pay for intestinal transplants in response to an appeal initiated by UPMC surgeons.
2001
UPMC expands its living donor transplant program and begins to offer adult-to-adult living donor liver transplants.
http://chpsti.upmc.com/
