With the help of groundbreaking technology, the University Health Network became the largest adult organ transplant program in North America in 2017.

The network, which includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, completed 639 adult transplants last year. (The UCLA Medical Center was second in volume, performing 607 adult transplants, and the University of California San Francisco Medical Center came next with 601.)

“I feel very privileged to work alongside such a remarkable and talented team of surgeons, physicians, and nurses,” said Dr. Atul Humar, who leads the Multi-Organ Transplant Program at UHN.

“For us, it’s all about our patients and the huge difference we are able to make to their lives.”

The milestone is due, in part, to the Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System, which preserves organs outside of body so they can be used safely for transplant. Organs are recovered from donors who have died. The organs receive oxygen and nutrients that enable them to be preserved outside body for up to 20 hours. Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, surgeon-in-chief at the University Health Network, is the architect of XVIVO.

With XVIVO, doctors can take organs, Keshavjee said, that “we normally would turn down, and evaluate them and treat them and make them better so we can use … (them).” He says the system is “the single biggest contributor to increasing the numbers of organs we can use for saving more lives.”

While the technology was first used for lungs, it can be used for the liver and kidney, and research on using it for the heart has begun.

Keshavjee said doctors in the United States and Europe use XVIVO, too. He talks to doctors at conferences to explain how the system works.

Organs can’t be transplanted without organ donors, and organ donation in Ontario has grown quickly; since 2008, the number of deceased organ donors in Ontario increased by 98 per cent. In 2017, there were 347 deceased organ donors in Ontario, compared to 175 in 2008. In 2008, 16 per cent of Ontarians were registered to donate their organs. The number nearly doubled to 30 per cent in 2017.

“One person can save eight people’s lives and change eight people’s lives,” said Keshavjee, referring to the eight organs a person can donate.

“I think, when people see the good that comes out of it, there really is no reason not to sign your organ donor card.”