Celebrating Dr. Göran Klintmalm and 30 years
of life-saving transplants at Baylor
It’s been more than 30 years since the first transplant
was performed at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas,
launching a program that has saved thousands of lives and has had
a profound impact on both patients and their families.
In 1984, Baylor’s transplant program was just in the planning
stages. Operating rooms were being outfitted, instruments were
being acquired. The surgical team was still being assembled and
oriented when a young Indiana child became desperately ill. She’d
been in and out of hospitals for five years due to a bile duct disorder called biliary atresia. As her health quickly deteriorated, it was
apparent that her only chance for survival was a liver transplant.
Her family assumed that if and when an organ donor was
located, they would rush to Pittsburgh.
“The program in Pittsburgh was the only liver transplant program in the United States and only one of five in the world,”
remembered Tom Starzl, M.D., the godfather of liver transplantation and professor of surgery at University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center. “But, our hospitals were filled; we had no intensive care
unit beds.”
Thankfully, Dr. Starzl had a backup plan. He encouraged the
administration and physicians at Baylor Dallas to launch a transplant program and handpicked their surgeon, Göran Klintmalm,
M.D., Ph.D. He knew the Dallas hospital had the expertise, manpower and motivation to help.
They all came together in Dallas on a cold winter night in 1984
to save a little girl’s life. The event christened what would become
the Annette C. and Harold C. Simmons Transplant Institute as
one of the first transplant centers in the United States, and set the
tone for the Simmons Transplant Institute’s leadership and direction for decades to come.
Today, the Simmons Transplant Institute is recognized internationally as having one of the finest kidney, liver and pancreas transplant programs in the world and one of the largest multi-specialty
transplant centers in the United States. In addition, it has the second largest heart transplant program in the nation.
What does 30 years of transplant at Baylor Health Care System
look like? More than 11,000 transplants – that includes more than
12
3,867 liver transplants, 3,951 kidneys, 256 pancreases, 659 hearts,
360 lungs – and counting.
At an event held in January celebrating the 30th anniversary,
Dr. Klintmalm was honored for his leadership at Baylor and in the
field of transplantation with a surprise reveal. The second floor of
Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center was renamed in his
honor: the Göran Klintmalm, M.D., Ph.D. Mezzanine.
In addition to saving thousands of lives, the Simmons Transplant
Institute currently participates in more than 80 active research
protocols and has trained more than 46 transplant surgeons and
nine hepatologists, many of whom have gone on to lead major
transplant programs around the world.
Despite transplantation medical advancements, roughly 21 people die each day due to a shortage of donated organs. The Simmons
Transplant Institute’s efforts to fight the shortage include research
into the use of stem cells to repair and create organs, “personalized” gene-based diagnosis and therapy of organs, and immune
system treatment to reduce organ rejection. This research has been
made possible in large part due to the Institute’s biorepository, the
largest in the world, which contains more than 85,000 serum and
cell samples from liver transplant recipients.
Over the past 30 years, generous donors have granted more than
$33 million to support research, medical education and patient-centered care for transplant patients, including a transformational gift
in 2010 from Annette C. and Harold C. Simmons to support
the Institute. It was subsequently renamed in their honor. Most
recently, the JLH Foundation made a generous grant to provide
transplant patients and their families with financial assistance for
the numerous out-of-pocket, unreimbursed expenses that arise
while awaiting or recovering from solid organ transplantation,
including lodging, parking, food and travel costs.
For more information about transplant initiatives, contact Melissa Dalton
at 214.820.2705 or [email protected].