Lung transplant success

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Edward Henry Jr., his lungs scarred by an incurable disease, thought it was a death sentence when he was told that he was too old to undergo lung transplant surgery.
“I can’t waste lungs on you,” Henry recalled a surgeon at a medical center outside Florida telling him. “You’re 70 years old.”
As Henry walked out, the surgeon’s pre-transplant coordinator took him aside. What she told him changed Henry’s life. Somebody could still help him: University of Florida Health.
UF Health’s stature as one of the nation’s leading lung transplant centers continued to grow in 2018 as its surgeons and supporting personnel performed a Florida-record 70 transplants, surpassing the previous mark of 58 by Tampa General Hospital in 2010, figures by the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network show. The program placed 10th in the nation and performed more lung transplants than any medical center in the Southeast with the exception of Duke University in North Carolina and its 97.
The program’s one-year survival with a functioning lung was 90 percent, comparing favorably with the national average of 88.8 percent, despite the program often serving as the last resort for patients like Henry.
Perhaps most remarkably, fewer UF Health patients died while on a wait list for a lung transplant than any other center in the nation that performs moderate to large numbers of transplants, just 4 percent of patients, according to the most recent figures.