About us
Geisinger’s transplant surgery program provides pancreas, liver and kidney transplantation. The program was established in 1981 and quickly became recognized for its exceptional quality. Geisinger uses a surgical-medical team approach to provide the highest level of care for patients facing transplantation.

Podcast
Listen to Chintalapati Varma, MD, director of transplantation surgery, explains the advantages of the comprehensive liver, pancreas and kidney transplant services available at Geisinger to referring physicians:

Why choose Geisinger?
Geisinger is one of a few transplant centers in the United States using tolerogenic immunosuppression limiting the amount of steroid medications your patients will need following transplant surgery. All Geisinger transplant physicians are board-certified in a related medical specialty and all transplant surgeons are board-certified in a related surgical specialty or have the international equivalent of board certification.

Geisinger's transplantation team consists of healthcare professionals from surgery, nephrology, pathology, pediatrics, cardiology, urology and endocrinology. It also includes members from social services, nursing, nutrition, pharmacy and financial services.

Certified by United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), all of our transplant services, including dialysis, are available for children and adult patients at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. Geisinger specialists list transplant patients with the Gift of Life Donor Program, a UNOS-certified organ procurement organization. The Gift of Life oversees procurement and distribution of organs to transplant centers in Pennsylvania. Our program includes:

• Pre-transplant evaluations
• Patient listings
• Transplantation surgery
• Post-transplantation care

Find a physician
Click for the list of Geisinger’s Transplant team, consisting of many different healthcare specialists and support staff.

Our facilities
Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, and Geisinger Wyoming Valley in Wilkes-Barre are premier resources for healthcare. They have received national acclaim with listings in the Best Doctors in America and inclusion on the "100 Top Hospitals" lists. Geisinger is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). For more information, contact the Department of Transplantation Services:

Kidney transplantation
In 1981, Geisinger opened one of the region's first kidney transplant programs. Today, Geisinger surgeons are among the few in the country who perform robotic laparoscopic nephrectomies on living kidney donors, a procedure which dramatically reduces recovery time for individuals who donate a kidney to a loved one. Geisinger's transplant program has performed more than 800 kidney transplants with exceptional results. It is one of the first in the nation to use tolerogenic immunosuppression.

Liver transplantation
In 2006, Geisinger surgeons performed central Pennsylvania’s first liver transplant. The success rate of liver transplantation nationwide at one and two years is 92 percent and 86 percent respectively.

Pancreatic transplant surgery
The first pancreas transplant at Geisinger Medical Center was performed in 2003. For the patient with type I diabetes, Geisinger Medical Center offers several options for transplantation:

• Simultaneous kidney and pancreas (SKP) transplantation
• Pancreas after kidney transplantation
• Pancreas alone transplantation.

Success of kidney-pancreas transplantation
Nationwide, the patient survival rate after one year for kidney-pancreas transplantation is more than 90%, the pancreas graft survival is 85% and the kidney graft survival is 87%.

Living-related donor program
For patients with end-stage renal disease, shortages of cadaveric donor kidneys and long waiting periods for a suitable kidney may lead to consideration of living organ donation. Geisinger transplant surgeons collaborate with urology specialists for robotic-assisted living-related donor nephrectomy.