The team at Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine's Canning Thoracic Institute performed 148 lung transplants in 2024, more than any transplant center in the U.S., in part due to its embrace of an innovative approach to organ preservation.
The institute had a median wait time of four days for a lung transplant in 2024, the shortest wait time reported by a U.S. transplant center, according to a Northwestern Medicine news release shared with Becker's.
These achievements were made possible by lung perfusion and refrigeration technologies that widen the donor pool and improve scheduling capacities, the release said.
Lung perfusion, or "lungs in a box," allows surgeons to repair damaged donor lungs, while lung refrigeration, or "lungs in a fridge," preserves the lungs for a longer period of time than standard transplant procedures.
The lung transplant team successfully used "lungs in a fridge" for about 12 patients in 2024, the release said.