Transplantation Medicine

The Transplant Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, led by physicians of Weill Cornell and Columbia, is a national leader in kidney and pancreas transplantation and has been ranked number 1 in the USA for the last ten years.  

The NYP/Weill Cornell Transplant Program is one of the largest programs in the country and the oldest transplant program in the New York metropolitan area.  We have performed more than 5,000 transplants since the program’s inception in 1963.  The program is renowned for:

• maximizing transplant opportunities 
• delivering exceptional outcomes for patients through cutting-edge laboratory research
• advanced surgical techniques 
• personalized medical management 
• national kidney exchanges
• a multidisciplinary treatment approach

With more than 200 transplants performed per year at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, our patient and graft survival rates continue to be stellar. The survival rate of kidney graft recipients is 97.5% and the graft survival rate is 96%, 1 year following transplantation. The program is a national leader in living kidney donation and kidney paired donation.  Our world-renowned laboratory is at the forefront of translational research in transplantation and was the first to develop a gene expression-based test to noninvasively predict and prevent organ rejection after kidney transplantation.  In addition, the pancreas transplant program offers expertise in transplantation for patients with life-threatening complication of type 1 diabetes mellitus.  It is the only center in the New York tri-state region to have performed successful human islet cell transplantation, a minimally invasive procedure to isolate the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, and implant them in a patient in order to improve, control, and reduce complications of type 1 diabetes.

Through the years, several innovations have been introduced in the transplantation arena: blood type (ABO) incompatible transplant; positive cross-match transplant; minimization of the amount of drugs patients need for successful transplantation; development of treatment protocols to reduce serious post-transplant complications (i.e., infection and malignancy); and, significantly, the development of noninvasive molecular assays for assessing transplant status, reducing the need for an invasive biopsy procedure.

Useful Links to Information on COVID-19:  

Weill Cornell Medicine: https://weillcornell.org/coronavirus

FAQ from AST:  https://www.myast.org/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-frequently-asked-questions