The pediatric organ transplant programs at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital serve the needs of children and teens with acute and chronic organ failure. With many year of experience in pediatric organ transplants, we provide a multidisciplinary, integrated team approach to address the spectrum of transplant needs of patients and their families.
What is a Pediatric Organ Transplant?
What is a Pediatric Organ Transplant?Pediatric organ transplant is a surgery in which a child with a failing organ receives a healthy organ donated by another person. Some children who need an organ transplant are born with a condition (called congenital) that prevents an organ from functioning well—cardiomyopathy, for example, which affects the heart’s ability to pump blood. Others have conditions like hypertension, which affect an organ’s ability to do its job over time, in this case the kidneys.
Pediatric Organ Transplant Programs
ProgramsNewYork-Presbyterian offers specialized programs dedicated to pediatric heart, kidney, liver, and intestinal transplant, as well as transplant of the liver, small intestine, and other abdominal organs at the same time (multi-visceral). Organ transplantation is among the most complex of medical procedures, and we have a long history of success.
Our pediatric transplantation programs include:
- Heart transplant. Pediatric heart transplant is most often needed in children with congenital heart disease that cannot be corrected with other surgery. We have exceptional experience with using assistive devices to treat children with heart failure as a bridge to transplant. The first successful heart transplant in a child was performed at Columbia- Presbyterian Medical Center in 1984. Today we perform about 25 pediatric heart transplants per year—more than any other hospital in the United States.
- Kidney transplant. Many congenital malformations in the urinary system can lead to kidney failure in children, as can systemic diseases such as lupus, hypertension, and diabetes. Our kidney transplant specialists are at the forefront of minimally invasive surgery for living donors, better access to donated kidneys, and anti-rejection approaches with fewer side effects.
- Liver transplant. In children, acute liver failure, biliary atresia, and liver cancer are a few of the most common conditions we treat with liver transplant. For these challenging and complex conditions, our team performs some of the most technically demanding and innovative procedures with excellent outcomes. Our living transplant program offers minimally invasive surgery for living donors, improving the recovery after donation.
- Small bowel transplant. If your child is unable to absorb enough nutrients due to irreversible intestinal problems with serious complications, we may recommend small bowel transplant. Our pediatric organ transplant specialists have been performing this surgery for more than two decades. We offer intestinal and multi-visceral organ transplantation to children when other treatment strategies have failed.
Living Donor Transplant Programs
Receiving an organ from a living donor has many benefits. Our specialists have developed innovative ways of expanding the donor pool and improving recovery for both donors and recipients for kidney and liver transplants.
- For pediatric kidney transplant, when a suitable donor cannot be found among family members or friends, paired donor kidney exchanges can anonymously match compatible donors with recipients. With this technique, a donor who is not a match for their child donates to another individual, and their child receives a kidney from another matched donor, whose child receives a kidney from another donor, and so on.
- For liver transplants in children, NewYork-Presbyterian hosts New York’s largest Living Donor Transplant Program. Our patients are ten times more likely to receive a liver transplant than they are at other hospitals. At the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, our transplant team can perform laparoscopic living liver donation, revolutionizing the pathway to donor recovery and decreasing morbidity.
What Sets Us Apart
What Sets Us ApartNewYork-Presbyterian is a leader in pediatric organ transplant and treats children with some of the most serious and complex conditions. Our doctors perform procedures that require the highest level of medical and surgical expertise, and NewYork-Presbyterian's transplant outcomes — both complication rates and long-term survival — are among the best in the nation.
- The first hospital to perform a successful pediatric heart transplant, NewYork-Presbyterian continues to be a leader in the field. We have the highest volume heart transplant program for children. As the only children’s hospital in the tristate area that has been designated as a Platinum Center of Excellence by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), we can provide extended heart-lung support while your child waits for an organ.
- We have special teams to help treat children who need double organ transplants. Working closely with doctors from several specialty areas, we’ve successfully performed heart-kidney and liver-kidney transplant surgeries on children and teens.
- Our kidney transplant programs utilize many innovative strategies to care for both transplant recipients and living kidney donors. We strive to provide pre-emptive kidney transplants to our children or shorten time on dialysis before transplant.
- We have a dedicated transition clinic to help teenagers who have undergone transplant surgery or who require transplant surgery prepare for the transition to adult care after they turn 21. This program helps them prepare for health and social changes that arise.
- Our liver transplant program offers partial auxiliary liver transplant for patients with acute liver failure, permitting the end of immunosuppression once the native liver recovers.
This content has been reviewed by the following medical editors.
Choose NewYork-Presbyterian for Pediatric Organ Transplant Surgery
Organ transplantation can significantly improve the lives of children with organ failure, but the surgery and the processes surrounding it can be daunting. Schedule an appointment to learn more about the treatment options for your child’s specific condition.
To assure the best possible outcomes for our patients at our pediatric transplant centers, we have strong multidisciplinary teams, comprised of not just physicians but also nutritionists, social workers, transplant pharmacists, and psychiatrists.