The CAMC Kidney Transplant Center has ranked second in the country for the time it takes for patients to be transplanted once they’ve been put on the transplant waitlist, according to a recent study by the Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients (SRTR).
“Patients who come to us can receive a transplant within six to eight months, whereas the national average is anywhere between five to seven years,” said Santosh Nagaraju, MD, transplant surgeon at CAMC. “The longer patients are on dialysis, the more it increases their risk for heart complications and mortality. Cutting dialysis short and receiving a transplant sooner helps mitigate these risk factors and allows patients to start living new, improved lives.”
Alice Jones, Transplant Services Program Administrator, sees first-hand the impact of organ donation and transplantation at CAMC.
“Dialysis takes a toll on the patient, not only physically, but mentally,” Jones said. “That is why it is so important to get transplanted quickly.”
The CAMC Kidney Transplant Center has been a leader in transplantation in West Virginia since 1987, performing more than 1,700 kidney transplants in Charleston over 35 years, including 65 transplants so far this year.
“This accomplishment is a testimony to the dedication of our incredible transplant team,” said Heidi Edwards, Vice President of CAMC General Hospital and home to the Kidney Transplant Center. “I’m consistently inspired by the team’s determination to ensure every patient who needs a kidney transplant has the outreach and support to make it happen.”
“We are from West Virginia,” Jones said. “That’s part of us and part of our program, and that’s what has made us successful and helped us change so many lives.”
SRTR designs and carries out data analyses to inform transplant programs, health care professionals, transplant recipients, organ donors and donor families, and the public about the current state of organ transplantation in the United States. The organization also provides a transplant rate ratio, which measures the rate at which the transplant program finds deceased donor organs for its candidates. The faster a patient on the waitlist receives a transplant is statistically linked to a 5% reduction in the risk of death after being placed on the list.
For more information about the CAMC Kidney Transplant Center, visit camc.org/Kidney.
