Answering the question, "What if...?"
Giving hope to transplant patients
The University of Alberta Hospital is home to the most complex organ and tissue transplant program in Canada. No other program offers this range of transplant procedures – heart, heart/lung, kidney, liver, small bowel, bone, eye, tissue and islet cells.
The specialized 18-bed, multi-organ transplant unit enables surgeons, physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nutritionists, social workers and other specialists to provide complex care before and long after transplant surgery to adult and pediatric patients.
Ongoing donor support is needed to drive innovation in these critical areas:
Preventing rejection of implanted organs
Eliminating the cause of organ failure
Advancing technology
Support Transplant Innovation
What if we could . . .
Double or even triple the number of transplantable organs?
Science fiction, right? No, this is real.
Doctors at the University of Alberta Hospital have developed a system that’s transforming the way donor organs are “kept alive” outside the body, giving surgical teams time to fix damaged organs, and make them suitable for transplantation.
Predict the outcomes of transplants before surgery?
Impossible? Not with today’s technology – and the combined expertise and resources of our clinical and research teams.
By virtually cross-matching organ donors with potential recipients, doctors can more accurately predict outcomes – even for the most hard-to-match patients. Next up? Tailoring immunosuppression therapies so each patient gets exactly the support they need to live a healthy, productive life after their transplant.
UAH is ranked sixth in the world for transplanting excellence in clinical care and research
Approximately 300 transplants are performed each year at the UAH
Only one in four donated sets of lungs are healthy enough to be transplanted
Patient story
Gwen Livingstone
Dr. Norm Kneteman, Director, Division of Transplantation
Catchment Area
The program serves an area over 5.5 million square kilometres, or around 2/3 the area of Canada. It proudly provides gold standard care to more than seven million Canadians across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
