Lung Transplant
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You need a lung transplant. At UVA Health, you'll find the UVA Transplant Center offers the latest innovations, technology, and trusted specialists.
But what truly sets us apart: Our team. We care for you as an individual, before, during, and after your lung transplant. You'll experience a community environment unique to UVA Health.
The result? Outcomes that rate, year after year, well above the national average.
Learn More About Lung Transplant
A lung transplant can be a complex and scary thing. Learn more about what to expect. Download our free lung transplant handbook (PDF).
Team Approach to Lung Transplant
Founded in 1990, this program became the first lung program of its kind in Virginia.
Max Weder: We have a very dedicated team of highly trained professionals that are all very dedicated to delivering the highest quality of care, and that dedication has resulted in post-transplant outcomes that are consistently above the national average.
Sarah Kilbourne: After you receive your transplant here at UVA, there's a number of things that you can expect from our team, and, in general, you should be able to expect and anticipate that in the same personalized fashion that we put you through your entire pre-transplant evaluation, we'll still have that same dedicated care team taking care of you after your transplant.
Hannah Mannem: What I find the most rewarding is really the camaraderie of everyone that I've met and worked with, including my fellow physicians and nurse practitioners, nurse coordinators, social workers, but also just the lady in the cafeteria or the gentleman at the information desk. Everyone just seems to have such a sincere, amicable personality and has been very helpful, and it just feels like a real community environment, especially in the lung transplant arena.
Speaker 4: One of the exciting technologies, which UVA is participating in is our XVIVO Lung Perfusion. This is basically a concept that we can take lungs that have deteriorated a little bit and put them in a machine to recondition them and make them better, and we've utilized that technology in successful lung transplantations, and we're part of a large national trial to advance the technology. That is something that will extend our donor, will essentially make more lungs available to our recipient population.
Max Weder: What sets us apart from larger transplant centers is a focus on individualized care and continuity of care.
Getting Lungs to You Faster Than Ever
At UVA Health, we're committed to finding you lungs as soon as possible.
TransMedics™ Organ Care System (OCS)
Lungs can live about 6 hours outside the body. But a high-tech device can now extend that window of time. This means we can look for lungs nationwide. You can get the best lungs available in the country.
The TransMedics™ Organ Care System (OCS) saves lungs in a controlled environment. The portable device monitors the organs as they travel. Giving lungs the blood and air they need, the OCS can even improve the lungs' quality.
Double Listing
Call us to discuss how you can reduce your wait time by listing at UVA Health in addition to your current center.
Am I Eligible for a Lung Transplant?
Lung transplants treat a range of lung diseases that don't respond to other treatments. Pulmonary conditions that qualify include:
- Pulmonary fibrosis
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Cystic fibrosis
- Sarcoidosis
- Pulmonary hypertension
Factors that could disqualify you, due to the high risk of complications, include:
- Untreatable dysfunction in other organs
- Active use of nicotine products (including nicotine patches, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes, vaping)
- Drug and/or alcohol abuse
- Recent history of active cancer
- Obesity
During the evaluation process, we'll determine if transplant alternatives exist. We'll try to help you address or improve health problems before the surgery.
Learn more about what the evaluation process entails.
Supportive Care for Lung Transplant Patients
Patrick shares his experience with choosing UVA Health for his lung transplant. The support group helped him feel more confident in his decision. He now enjoys life with more energy than before.
PATRICK GUTEKENST: My wife and I spent a great deal of time researching lung transplant in general, and then comparing various transplant centers. And that's when we decided that UVA seemed to fit us and our lifestyle the best. The lung transplant results, the survivor rates, also the volume, and the wait times.
JEFF LUCAS: I can’t imagine what another lung transplant program could give to a caregiver that I didn’t have access to. They weren’t only concerned about AnnÕs rehabilitation; they were well aware of the kind of stress it was going to put on me. So they were very cognizant of checking in with me all the time to see how I was handling it; make sure that I was doing okay.
MARGE LEARY: I came to a support group meeting here, and there were about three people whoÕd had lung transplants, and I sat and listened to them. And they all talked very positively about the transplant, about the experience here at UVA.
ANN LUCAS: I was diagnosed at age 50 with pulmonary fibrosis and rheumatoid arthritis. I was listed for a lung transplant in 2016 at two different institutions. I had three dry runs, and I received lungs from the University of Virginia on March 19th, 2017.
DEBBIE MILLER: I can run with my grandchildren now versus watching them run, and so it’s just amazing. I mean I just have more energy, and just can do so many more things than I could before.
Saving Lungs: Research at UVA
Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion (EVLP) takes unsuitable lungs and rehabilitates them into a healthy, usable state.
With EVLP, we hope to:
- Increase the number of available donor lungs
- Reduce the time patients wait for new lungs
- Improve outcomes for lung transplant patients
Most lungs from donors who die outside of the hospital don't get used. Surgeons can't tell how damaged they are. EVLP could allow us to heal injured lungs and give them to patients in need.
Learn about our efforts to increase the number of lungs available to save more lives.