Hospital’s transplant programs hope to make comeback

Those in need of heart and lung transplants can breathe easy again.

Temple recently hired a Pittsburgh surgeon and researcher, Yoshiya Toyoda, to bring back Temple University Hospital’s heart and lung transplant programs, according to Philadelphia Magazine. Both of the programs became inactive at the end of the spring semester.

Toyoda came to Temple in October, from the University of Pittsburgh.

In August 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Health cited the lung-transplant program for having higher-than-expected deaths after transplants, according to a May report by the Philadelphia Inquirer. TUH officials stated in the report that the program had been improving.

The lead surgeon for the lung transplant program left in May, causing the program to become inactive.

The heart transplant program reportedly was temporarily inactivated, too, due to low patient volume.

Temple has reapplied to the United Network for Organ Sharing in order to reactivate to the programs, Philadelphia Magazine reported.

Toyoda has been listed as a top doctor by U.S. News and World Report.

[Updated on Dec. 5 at 12:20 p.m.]