Froedtert & MCW Lung Transplant Program Marks 20th Transplant in 2022

This November, the Froedtert & MCW health network celebrated a milestone in its lung transplant program, with its 20th lung transplant in 2022. This marks the first time the lung transplant program has reached this milestone since its launch in the 1990s.

Froedtert & MCW’s Lung Transplant program has historically been a smaller program in the region, averaging 8-10 lung transplants per year. At its height, the program did 13 lung transplants in 2015 and again in 2018. The 2022 program performance is of the highest volume of lung transplants in the 23 years of the program, according to UNOS data.

Like most of the health network, Froedtert & MCW’s Lung Transplant Program felt the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the height of COVID-19 surges, a number of young patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms were transferred to Froedtert Hospital for ECMO support, including a 40-year old male from northern Wisconsin who received a lung transplant in April, and an Illinois resident who transferred from a local hospital after three months on ECMO. Our program accepted him for transfer in December 2021; he received a transplant in January 2022. We are grateful to our team for their relentless pursuit of the best patient outcomes amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program’s success is attributed to our team of highly experienced lung transplant surgeons, including Dr. Nilto De Oliveira, Dr. Lucian Durham, and Dr. Takushi Kohmoto, the team of lung transplant pulmonologists, including Dr. Alan Betensley, Dr. Samir Sultan, Dr. Stephen Dolan and Dr. Kenneth Presberg, as well as the entire care team who provides patient care before, during and after transplant.

The Froedtert & MCW lung transplant team seeks to be a top performing program in the region. As we continue to build our reputation of taking higher than average risk patients while continuing to deliver outstanding survival rates, we move closer to that goal with an increase in patients and complexity.

Congratulations to the Froedtert & MCW Lung Transplant Program surgeons, pulmonologists, and support staff!