Emory 7th busiest in kidney transplants

By Holly Korschun

Emory Hospital is the nation’s seventh-busiest in kidney-pancreas transplants, according to a recent survey by U.S. News & World Report. Emory physicians performed 22 kidney-pancreas transplants in 2000.

This is the first year U.S. News has featured transplants in its annual “Best Hospitals” issue. In the same issue, Emory Hospital was named one of America’s best in five medical specialties: cardiology (ninth), ophthalmology (ninth), kidney disease (18th), gynecology (40th) and urology (41st).

“This year our number of transplants is considerably higher, and we expect to perform between 32 and 35 kidney-pancreas transplants in 2001,” said Christian Larsen, co-director of Emory’s kidney transplantation program along with Thomas Pearson.

The kidney program has gained an international reputation for groundbreaking research leading to new strategies to stop rejection of transplanted organs. Emory was selected in 1999 to be part of the Collaborative Network for Clinical Research on Immune Tolerance, a nationwide network of 39 institutions in nine countries to conduct clinical trials using new research strategies to improve organ transplantation.

Larsen, who recently was named director of the Emory Transplant Center, was selected to lead the kidney transplant trials group for the new nationwide network, which is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. In 1998 the NIH awarded physician-researchers in Emory’s Center for Transplantation a five-year, $7.5 million grant to help establish true immune tolerance in patients receiving organ transplants.

Key to the growth of the transplant center has been the ongoing support of the Carlos and Marguerite Mason Trust of Atlanta, as well as the support of the Livingston Foundation and the Woodruff Fund.

“Emory’s program in kidney-pancreas transplantation continues to make great strides, both in numbers of transplants and success of our transplant strategy,” Larsen said.