ROANOKE, Va. – To provide lifesaving transplants for patients who need it most in southwest Virginia, Carilion Clinic is working to start an adult kidney transplant program.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in seven adults in the U.S. has chronic kidney disease. It’s the country’s tenth leading cause of death.
“We’re committed to providing our neighbors and community with more access to advanced medical services,” said CEO Nancy Howell Agee. “The need is clear, and we’re fortunate to have the talented team required for this transplant program.”
Carilion said the need for kidney transplantation is projected to grow more than 25 percent by 2025 and by 32 percent each year for the next 10 years in Carilion’s service area alone. Currently, those in the area must travel two hours or more for transplantation services and can wait anywhere from 18 months to 5 years for a donor.
Severe kidney damage and low organ function require dialysis, permanently changing a patient’s quality of life and life expectancy. While medication can reduce disease progression, transplantation is the next step for patients to take to improve their lives. Patients with end-stage kidney conditions in the region require dialysis and must travel to healthcare systems to the northeast and south to receive transplants.
“Carilion’s Community Health Assessments and other analyses have shown the leading reason late-stage renal disease patients fail to obtain transplants is difficulty accessing transplantation services. Currently, patients in our area have to travel two hours or more for this life-saving care,” said Rawle “Tony” Seupaul, M.D., chief physician executive for Carilion. “Our demographic data also shows us that renal disease disproportionately impacts patients of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This new program will be a lifeline to those patients when it’s fully up and running.”
“The amount of patients that we can help in the region is certainly significant. We have about 5,000 patients in southwest Virginia that suffer from chronic kidney disease, and we have a solution for them,” said Dr. David Salzberg, a Carilion Clinic Transplant Surgeon. “We need to bring this treatment back home to these patients. We need to bring it to their back door and make it not only convenient but accessible. Accessible care means less risk to the patient and more thorough care to the patient leading to a better outcome.”
If approved through Virginia’s certificate of public need process, the Carilion kidney transplant program would be Virginia’s eighth transplant center and the only one serving western Virginia.
“We have many patients in the region which suffer from chronic kidney disease. When we talk about the treatment of chronic disease, many of us think that is some slow indolent issue that people deal with for years or decades, but for those who suffer with kidney disease, those folks don’t just deal with everyday problems. They deal with things like dialysis and things that can cause long-term problems that can affect their overall health in ways that are not really imaginable in the beginning” Salzberg said. “If a patient has trouble getting from their home to the next most available transplant center six hours away, what makes us feel that they would have an easier time getting from their home to a transplant surgery in the middle of the night?”
The program would use existing operating rooms at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, allowing the program to ramp up quickly. Anyone interested in receiving updates about Carilion’s plans for a kidney transplant program can email transplants@carilionclinic.org.