How a Vision Was Made to Come True.

Abstract

A kidney transplant program was started at Innsbruck University Hospital in 1974. This was followed by the first liver transplant in 1977 and the first combined pancreas-kidney transplant in 1979. Because these 3 programs were quite successful, the idea was born to try to establish a unit that could provide temporary and permanent replacement for the loss of all kinds of organ function. In 1993, a special unit for transplant was opened. Dialysis was incorporated as part of available treatment right from the beginning. The new ward made it possible to routinely treat patients in need of bioartificial livers, to provide ventricular assist devices and later total artificial hearts, and to provide extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The first heart transplant was performed in 1983, the first heart-lung in 1985, the first double-lung in 1987, followed by the first multivisceral transplant in 1989, the first isolated bowel in 1994, and finally the first double-hand transplant was performed in 2000. Thus, our vision of such a unit has become true.