Our Achievements
Kidney Transplant Program Achievements Print E-mail

The largest living donor kidney transplant program in the state is at Texas Transplant Institute** where our physicians have performed more than 1,600 live donor kidney transplants to date—making it also one of the largest programs of its kind in the United States. And they've performed more than 3,300 combined live donor and deceased donor transplants.

Our Living Paired Donor Kidney Transplant team made history in November, 2010, with the world's largest paired donor kidney transplant donor chain--with 16 transplants completed over three days. The 17th donor's "bridge" kidney was used to start another chain in December--extending the record-breaking chain to 23--still the largest single center kidney donor chain in the world! The kidney recipients ranged in age from 17 to 69 and all were transplanted with fully matched kidneys without the need for desensitization therapy. Dr. Adam Bingaman, Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Surgeon and Director of the Live Donor Kidney Transplant Program with Texas Transplant Physician Group further extended the chain in January, 2011.

Read the local and national coverage this donor chain generated in our Kidney News section.

We are the most experienced transplant center in Texas with minimally-invasive laparoscopic living donor kidney removal surgery.

Texas Transplant Physician Group serves patients in satellite clinics throughout Texas (Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi and Laredo) and receives numerous referrals from nearby states--including Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico--even Georgia and Florida.

Learn more: Helping the Hopeless: San Antonio's Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program is Top in the Nation (2009 & 2010)

Incompatible Live Donor Kidney Transplant Program

Our innovative program offers comprehensive solutions for kidney transplant patients with incompatible live donors.

As the largest living donor transplant program in Texas and one of the largest in the United States, we are a national leader in turning "No" into "Yes!" by matching incompatible kidney donor and recipient pairs. Incompatible pairs are matched with other incompatible pairs, and the donors are exchanged, providing kidney patients with a transplant from a matched donor and second chance at life.

The Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital** team performed the first exchange in March 2008 and has since completed more than 150 procedures.

Paired Donation Kidney Transplant Program

As the national leader in paired donation kidney transplantation with more than 150 paired exchanges performed since 2008, Texas Transplant Institute's large in-house database is designed to match incompatible donor/recipient pairs managed by a dedicated team of immunologists, physicians and transplant coordinators.

Click here for an example of a triple donor exchange.

The Paired Donation Kidney Transplant Program is also responsible for creating three donor chains initiated by three non-directed donors. One of the donors is the largest in the world with a record 23 kidney transplants to date. Plans to continue the chain are under way.

Non-Directed Donor Program

Non-directed kidney donation is a unique way to match living donors with compatible recipients and to increase the availability of matching kidneys for kidney patients in need of a transplant. It takes paired donor kidney exchanges one giant step further.

The Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital**--the largest program of its kind in Texas and one of the largest in the United States—is one of only a select number of kidney transplant programs in the U.S. to offer a Paired Kidney Donor Exchange Program which is ideally positioned to create donor chains thanks to its large database of incompatible donor/recipient pairs.

Our Non-Directed Donor Program made history in late 2010 with a 23-way live donor kidney transplant chain which began with a single non-directed donor--making it the largest single center donor chain in the world! Plans to extend the chain in January, 2011 are under way.

Our Living Paired Donor Kidney Transplant team performed three separate donor chains to transplant a total of 37 kidney patients with donors and recipients from across the United States including Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Vermont.

  • a 5-way donor chain (now complete)
  • a 23-way donor chain (ongoing)--the largest donor chain the world
  • a 9-way donor chain (ongoing)

Blood Type Incompatible Program

Positive Crossmatch and Sensitized Patient Program

Desensitization with plasmapheresis and IVIG for sensitized patients

More About Our Program

We have fully bilingual, Spanish-speaking physicians, clinical and support staff.

To read more about our Texas Transplant Institute**'s paired exchange kidney transplant program--the busiest in the country, click here.

To watch a video featuring paired exchange kidney transplant patients and celebrating Texas Transplant Institute's 10th anniversary, click here.

To see our ad in the February 2011 edition of Texas Monthly, click here.

Incompatible Live Kidney Donor Exchange Program Milestones

In 2009 and 2010, Texas Transplant Institute's Incompatible Live Donor Kidney Exchange Program was the largest of its kind in the United States. (UNOS.org)

  • 150 paired kidney exchange transplants since 2008 (with 71 paired exchanges in 2010 alone!) make Texas Transplant Institute*'s program one of the busiest paired exchange kidney transplant programs in the United States.

We were the first in the world to perform:

  • a 23-person live donor kidney transplant chain inititated by a single non-directed donor

We were the first program in Texas to perform:

  • A simultaneous paired kidney exchange (2 recipients/2 donors)
  • A simultaneous three-way paired kidney exchange (3 recipients/3 donors)