At Loyola Medicine’s nationally recognized Transplant Center, we deliver advanced care for patients who need life-saving organ transplants. Our team combines decades of expertise, cutting-edge technology and compassionate support to achieve outstanding outcomes. When it comes to transplant care, Loyola is a trusted leader right here in your community.
Since its inception in 1984, Loyola Medicine’s heart transplant program has provided integrated, advanced care, including evaluation, surgery, and lifelong follow-up, for patients with advanced heart failure. Our heart transplant team uses the latest technology and advancements in organ procurement.
Loyola completed Illinois’ first heart transplant using a newly developed cardiac transport system with temperature-monitoring canister to maintain the integrity of donor hearts for more than 40 hours. This technology enhances organ viability and supports better outcomes for patients.
Loyola Medicine is a Designated Center of Excellence for living kidney donor transplants by the Donor Care Network, and has offered kidney transplant care since 1971, with a focus on taking on challenging cases. Patients benefit from aggressive organ acceptance practices, leading to some of the shortest wait times in Illinois and high success rates.
Additionally, Loyola’s living-donor and kidney chain programs use innovative models like pay-it-forward to expand donor opportunities and improve outcomes. Advanced robotic surgery also plays a key role; we are one of the only programs skilled in the use of robotics for both donor and recipient transplantation.
With one of Illinois’ largest hepatology practices and a multidisciplinary liver cancer program, patients receive exceptional care at every stage, from complex medical management to transplant evaluation and postoperative recovery. Loyola’s liver transplant program for end-stage liver disease uses both deceased and living donors, with living-donor grafts offering shorter wait times, immediate liver function and better overall outcomes. The center welcomes challenging cases and integrates academic and clinical expertise, ensuring top-tier results and personalized care plans.
Loyola Medicine’s lung transplant program, established in 1988, has performed more than 1,000 lung and heart-lung transplants, more than twice as many as any other center in Illinois. We continue our history of innovation to this day, having performed Illinois’ first lung transplant using a breakthrough method that preserves organs by circulating oxygen and nutrients during storage, similar to the body. This improves organ utilization and reduces complications, helping ensure better results for patients.
Loyola's pancreas transplant services aim to restore normal insulin function and optimize glucose control in patients with type I and select type II diabetes. The program supports both simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplants and pancreas-alone options. Average wait times at Loyola range from six months to one year, compared to the Illinois average being five to seven years. Post-surgery, most recipients achieve blood glucose levels between 70 and 150 without insulin, with hospital stays averaging about a week and follow-up care extending over several weeks.
When Christopher Canaday needed a heart transplant, he was referred to Loyola Medicine and put under the care of cardiologist Max Liebo, MD, and cardiothoracic surgeon Edwin McGee, Jr., MD. Christopher spent more than 200 days in the hospital, watched over by his mother who said "Loyola embraced him as one of their own.”
When another hospital said it was time for hospice, Loyola Medicine gave 26-year-old Michele Schmidt hope. That hope led to a life-saving double lung transplant, turning her fight with cystic fibrosis into a future filled with breath, love, and milestones she never thought possible.
After an infection in childhood left Israel Gonzalez with kidney failure and obesity threatened his chances for transplant, Loyola Medicine refused to let barriers stand in the way. With advanced robotic surgery and a bilingual transplant team by his side, Israel found hope, and the life-saving kidney transplant he thought might never come.
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