Livingston Hospital Breaks It's All-Time Record For Kidney Transplants

LIVINGSTON, NJ — For the second straight year in a row, the St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston has broken its record for kidney transplants.

During 2016, the hospital’s Renal and Pancreas Transplant Division completed 304 kidney transplants, topping its previous record of 301 set in 2015. The achievement once again places the facility among the top five transplant programs in the country in volume, hospital administrators stated earlier this month.

But there’s a downside to the hospital’s success story… a frightening spike in kidney disease.

According to St. Barnabas staff, kidney disease has doubled among adults 60-years and older in the United States in the past 15 years. Experts predict that nearly 60 percent of Americans will develop kidney disease at some time, a percentage higher than the lifetime risk of diabetes, heart attack or invasive cancer.

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“There are several reasons why the incidence of kidney disease is rising,” St. Barnabas staff stated in a news release. “It’s often a byproduct of obesity and diabetes, and there’s an epidemic of each. These conditions can raise blood pressure and put overwhelming stress on the organs. In addition, the general population is getting older and living longer… Aging itself is a risk factor for kidney disease.”

When coupled with a severe shortage of donor organs, most patients must wait an average of five years for a deceased-donor kidney, the hospital stated.

However, St. Barnabas is attempting to help patients obtain organs from “living donors” such as family members, friends and “anonymous altruists.”

“We started our Living Donor Kidney Transplant Institute to focus on promoting living donation,” said Shamkant Mulgaonkar, chief of the hospital’s Renal and Pancreas Transplant Division. “That has prompted a huge change. Last year, 147 of our 304 transplanted kidneys came from living donors making us one of the largest living donor programs in the United States.”

To learn more about kidney transplants or becoming a donor, visit the Renal and Pancreas Transplant Division webpage or call 1-888-409-4707.

Photo: St. Barnabas Medical Center

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