It was a banner 2016 for Stony Brook Medicine’s kidney transplant team, which set a new high water mark for procedures performed.
The Transplantation Services Team – including nephrologists, RNs and a deep, multi-disciplined support system – performed 81 kidney transplants from living and deceased donors last year, the most in any year since the specialized transplant team formed in 1979.
Wayne Waltzer: Some kidney of wonderful.
The team also successfully completed two kidney-paired donations, another first for the 37-year-old program. Through national organizations like the United Network for Organ Sharing and the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donations, KPDs help recipients with willing – but biologically incompatible – donors “swap” with other recipients and donors in similar situations.
According to UNOS, such pairing efforts helped lead to a record number of U.S. organ transplants in 2016, with more than 33,600 procedures performed nationally – a 20 percent increase over the 28,000 performed in 2012.
Stony Brook Medicine’s kidney transplant program – self-billed as “the oldest and most active renal transplant program on Long Island” – is led by Wayne Waltzer, chairman of the Stony Brook Medicine Department of Urology, and Frank Darras, associate professor of urology and clinical director of Stony Brook’s renal transplantation services.
