NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Over 100,000 people are on the US transplant waiting list. A new person is added to the list every 8 minutes. One organ donor can save up to 8 lives and enhance over 75 more through tissues donation like corneas, skin, tendons, bone or heart valves. Last year Vanderbilt Transplant Center performed 960 solid organ transplants making it the nation's largest transplant center in the United States by volume according to UNOS. Director of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center Joseph F. Magliocca, M.D. says the heart transplant team performed 2010 adult and pediatric heart transplants, 149 adult lung transplants, 368 kidney transplants and 183 liver transplants. They credit some of the success to novel technologies to preserve organs over longer distances, their organ recovery team's ability to mobilize an using techniques to make some donated organs viable with excellent outcomes.
The most important thing that anyone can do to save lives is sign up to be an organ donor.
Go to: organdonor.gov or
for more information: Vanderbilt Transplant Center
