Our Mission

The only center in the region to offer adult patients transplantation for every organ, the Transplant Center is a destination for any patient requiring transplantation, including multiple organ transplants and advanced care options.

Our center features a team of renowned transplant specialists committed to providing patients with the highest quality of care and innovative treatments, allowing them to return to a full and productive life.

An Innovator in the Transplant Field

For nearly three decades, our center has developed life-saving techniques that have revolutionized transplant medicine for patients around the globe. Our major transplant milestones include:

• World’s first successful tolerance induction in mismatched renal recipients. Read a news article about this milestone
• World’s first clinical use of a monoclonal antibody used in the prevention and treatment of graft rejection
• First regional lung transplant program for Medicare
• New England’s first live donor lung transplant program

Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital performed New England’s first successful:

• Pancreas transplant
• Liver transplant
• Combined liver/heart transplant

Standard-Setting Research & Care

As part of the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, our research focuses on developing new breakthrough treatments and techniques that offer excellent clinical outcomes for patients, including:

• Innovative treatments of immunosuppression, utilizing the drug OKT3, to reduce the likelihood of acute organ rejection
• Novel approaches to avoid immunosuppression through tolerance induction, allowing kidney transplant recipients to live drug-free after their transplantations
• Pioneering and effective approaches to the prevention of infectious disease in transplantation

The quality of our patient care is also enhanced by:

• Our commitment to developing leading-edge technology: We were involved in the original research trials of several heart devices that are now FDA-approved—including the L-Vad, or Left Ventricular Assist Device and the HeartMate—and improve functional status and quality of life before or instead of transplant
• The development of minimally invasive transplantation innovations: Our cardiac surgeons are national leaders in minimally invasive implantation procedures for ventricular-assist devices and pumps to modify or repair valves. Our center is one of the few in the region to offer transplantation of healthy islet cells into type I diabetes patients who are not candidates for a full pancreas transplant
• Our aggressive approach to identifying and utilizing available organs: We were a founding member of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and the New England Organ Bank (NEOB). We provide heart transplants to more patients with the shortest wait possible, usually less than three weeks for patients in the most acute need of a transplant. We also have an active living-donor program for kidney and liver transplantation
• Our excellent clinical outcomes: Our one-year graft and patient survival rates for all organs meet or exceed UNOS expected survival rates
• Emphasis on teaching and research: A Harvard Medical School teaching institution, we are training the next generations of transplant specialists in all areas of medicine and surgery, bringing fresh perspectives to the care of our patients and improving the care of transplant recipients worldwide. Our unique portfolio of basic and clinical research, education and clinical expertise benefits each patient receiving care at the Transplant Center