Why it matters: New preservation technology is rewriting what’s possible in organ transplantation, expanding options for patients across the region.
The big picture: For decades, transplant medicine operated on a strict timeline. Once an organ was recovered, teams had only hours to evaluate it and get it into a patient.
What’s new: Technology now allows surgeons to keep organs functioning outside the body longer, testing them, monitoring them, and making better decisions about whether they can be used.
- “We can almost take an organ for a test drive,” says Dr. Jean Botha, transplant surgeon and medical director of Intermountain Health’s transplant program. “We’re now able to access organs we probably would never have used before.”
By the numbers: Intermountain Health performed 515 organ transplants last year, the first time any Utah program has surpassed 500 in a single year.
The impact: In a region where several states don’t have transplant programs, these advances mean new flexibility for patients who must travel hundreds of miles for care.
- Dr. Botha says a patient from northeastern Montana can now take twelve hours to reach Utah, and the organ will be waiting, preserved and ready.
- Last year alone, twelve patients in Montana received liver transplants.
The bottom line: What wasn’t possible three years ago is now saving lives. More usable organs means more patients receiving the care they need.