Transplant Center Research and Innovation

Pediatric Transplant Pioneers

Patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford benefit significantly from the long history of transplant research conducted in partnership with the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Some of the innovations and discoveries include:

  • Stanford surgeons perform nation’s first heart transplant and first heart-lung transplant in children.
  • The first in the world to perform an innovative approach to kidney transplant without a lifelong regimen of immune-suppressing drugs.
  • The first on the West Coast to perform a pediatric liver transplant laparoscopic liver donor surgery.
  • Development of steroid-free kidney transplant.
  • The largest pediatric liver transplant series for malignancy in the nation.
  • The first pediatric intestinal transplant in Northern California.
  • The first ever randomized study, in children or adults, for treating highly sensitized recipients for kidney transplantation.
  • The first to use genetic profiling to determine a child’s inherited likelihood of organ rejection and to tailor post-transplant medications.
  • The first pediatric heterotopic heart transplant in California.
  • The first hospital on the West Coast to use a Berlin heart pump as a bridge to transplant for a child.
  • Successful transplantation of adult-size kidneys into small children.
  • Longest-surviving pediatric heart and heart-lung transplant patients.

Additional information