Our transplant services are characterized by innovation and positive outcomes:

• First to develop the concept of diversion of pancreatic enzymes into the urinary tract.
• Since 1970, educated the public and professionals regarding ‘brain death," then a new concept; involved in the first recognition of brain death by the New York State courts and mounted a grass roots effort to obtain a legislative definition of it.
• First to initiate a system for sharing kidneys in our region.
• First to transplant machine-preserved kidneys in New York.
• Participated in numerous single and multi-center studies of new immunosuppressive drugs.
• Our tissue typing laboratory has evaluated new techniques in tissue typing.

One-year patient survival with a functioning graft at Montefiore Medical Center is excellent (96 percent, compared to all US one-year patient survival 94%). Adjusted 3-year survival with a functioning graft at our center is 89.9%.

In 2022, we performed a record number of renal transplants for our center, 219. Our pediatric renal replacement program is world-renowned, and we have done more pediatric transplants than many pediatric hospitals. The pediatric population's patient and graft survival rates are superior to the national average. In addition, transplantation of the elderly is among our special interests.

By combining a world-class team of specialists with a full range of standard and innovative therapies, Montefiore can offer liver transplant patients a survival rate of more than 90 percent. Our center's 1-year survival with a functioning graft is 93%, comparable to the national rate of 91%.

Additionally, we have performed multiple combined organ transplantations, such as liver-kidney and lung-liver.

In 2022, our center performed 66 liver transplants. Our team aims to provide access to transplant for our community, with an increased focus on optimizing safe transplants for patients with alcoholic hepatitis, MASH, and complex redo liver transplants.

Some points of historic interest:

• The first liver transplant at Montefiore was successfully performed in a critically ill woman with fulminant hepatic failure in 2008.

• Within the first year of the Liver Disease and Transplantation Program, 50 patients were on the waiting list.

• In 2010, Montefiore performed its first split liver graft, in which an adult donor liver was split in the donor and offered to two recipients.

• Montefiore was approved to initiate its live donor liver program in 2010.

The fellows participate in the weekly academic meetings of the Division, as well as specialized lectures geared toward their advancement and their preparation for the Annual Knowledge Assessment. The specialized lectures bring the fellows together with one of our multidisciplinary team members for a detailed, small group discussion about topics critical to our practice as transplant surgeons.

The weekly academic meetings schedule, as well as an example of topics from the Transplant Surgical Fellows Lecture Series, appears below.

• Transplant Surgical Fellows Lecture Series, Mondays, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, various in-person locations
• Transplant Nephrology Journal Club/Core Curriculum Lecture, Mondays, 12:30 – 1:30 pm, Zoom
• Kidney Transplant M&M, Mondays, 2:00 – 3:00 pm, Teams
• Liver Transplant Selection, Mondays, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, TLC5
• CT scan review meeting, Tuesdays, 1:30 – 2:00 pm, TLC5
• Kidney and Kidney-Pancreas Graft Loss/Mortality Review, Tuesdays, 2:00 – 3:00 pm, TLC5
• Kidney Transplant Selection, Tuesdays, 3:00 – 4:00 pm, TLC5

• Hepatopancreatobiliary Tumor Board, Thursdays, 8:15 – 9:30 am, New Transplant Conference Room
• Department of Surgery M&M, Fridays, 7:00 – 8:00 am, Cherkasky Auditorium
• Department of Surgery Grand Rounds, Fridays, 8:00 – 9:00 am, Cherkasky Auditorium
• Transplant Nephrology Lunch and Learn, Fridays, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, TLC5