We broke our own organ transplant record – again

Overcoming barriers, Hume-Lee – one of the first transplant centers in the country – transplanted 494 organs in 2021.

If 2020 at VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center was defined by managing the uncertainty of COVID, last year was marked by acceptance of the pandemic — and thriving in the face of it.

"What our team has come to understand is that COVID is a fact of life, and so we keep going instead of becoming paralyzed or distracted by it," says Dr. Marlon Levy, chair of the Division of Transplant Surgery and director at Hume-Lee.

Overall, it was a record year in total transplants, living-donor gifts and liver recipients. It’s in line with the transplant team’s simple mantra: Save lives, one transplant at a time.

"That’s who we’ve positioned ourselves to be," Levy says, "and these records this year are the result of that mindset coming to fruition."

Growth led by liver and living donors

More organs transplanted equals more lives saved.

Hume-Lee — which consistently ranks among the nation's leading and most surgically advanced transplant programs — performed 494 transplants in 2021, eclipsing the 459 in 2020 and the 434 in 2019. In 2021, Hume-Lee teams transplanted 284 kidneys, 164 livers, 37 hearts, and nine pancreases.

This year, growth was led by liver transplants. This year’s 164 nearly doubled the number in 2019 (87). Among its many innovations that allow for more livers to be transplanted, Hume-Lee has established a unique program to transplant patients who suffer from severe alcoholic hepatitis, a condition that often disqualifies them at other centers. A multidisciplinary VCU Health team is involved in the program, which focuses on treating the entire patient.

"It’s not just physical care, but the behavioral and mental care that comes along with transplantation," Levy says. "We understand and treat addiction like the disease it is."

Growth is also thanks to a thriving living-donor program that allows for healthy people to donate a kidney or a portion of their liver to a transplant candidate. "Our live-donor program is strong, and the quality for those organs and the patient survival rate is superb," Levy says.

Of the 72 living-donor transplants last year, most were kidney and 19 were liver donors. Eight of those were "swaps." Swaps occur when a living donor and intended recipient are incompatible. Instead of turning that living donor away, that person can donate an organ – often a kidney – to another recipient with a compatible living donor. In turn, both intended recipients receive a compatible, life-changing organ.

We’re there for the most vulnerable

Hume-Lee is a "transplant safety net" for vulnerable populations, dovetailing with VCU Health’s recognition as a safety-net health system. In this role, the center serves disadvantaged populations.

"We live this mission," Levy says. "We’re a center committed to increasing access to organ transplants for all. That’s what drives our innovation and approaches to patient care. And we do so with compassion."

That also means leaning into tough-but-necessary discussions around race, ethnicity and organ transplants. Of the 106,000 people on the national transplant waiting list, 60 percent are an ethic minority, and most are African American. The greatest need? Kidneys. African-Americans are three to four times more likely to experience kidney failure than whites. And Latinos are 1.3 times more likely.

Its mindset and clinical expertise allows Hume-Lee to also take on the tough patients and cases other centers turn down. Or the reason a patient traveled 1,800 miles to VCU for a complex pancreas surgery. 2021 was a record year at Hume-Lee for the TP-IAT procedure, which cures chronic pancreatitis.

Innovating in COVID…with COVID organs
One of the most impactful innovations in recent months has been learning how to accept organs from donors who have died and were infected with COVID-19. "They may not have died of COVID, but they were COVID-positive at the time of death," Levy explains. "Getting donors who have COVID doesn’t happen often, but as this virus embeds itself in our nation, we'll be faced with that circumstance over and over again — so we need to learn how to make the best of it."

Factors that go into the decision to use COVID-positive organs include the overall health of the donor or their vaccination status. For recipients, certain treatments such as monoclonal antibodies may be used. All of which wouldn’t be possible without a dedicated team working in concert to make industry-leading, complex care, an everyday occurrence at Hume-Lee.

"We're thrilled with the team and the hard work and dedication that our people have put in," he says. "It's very, very humbling to be part of this team — much less to be able to lead this team. We are an army of passionate, dedicated people saving lives every day."

Consider the selfless act of living organ donation. VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center is a leader in pioneering living organ donations.