With its 1,000th liver perfusion, TGH has nearly doubled its liver transplant surgeries and reduced median patient wait time to less than a month.
Oct. 20, 2026 — Tampa General Hospital (TGH) Transplant Institute, home to the world’s largest center-based liver normothermic machine perfusion program, has completed its 1,000th liver perfusion. The milestone reflects the impact of TGH’s in-house expertise: More patients can receive lifesaving liver transplants; experience shorter waits; and the have opportunity to undergo surgery before liver disease affects them more seriously.
TGH performed its first liver perfusion in October 2022 and has used normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) for every liver transplanted at the hospital since September 2023. By making perfusion a routine part of liver transplantation, TGH has helped expand the number of donor organs available to its patients and has nearly doubled the size of its liver transplant program.
Normothermic machine perfusion maintains a donor liver outside the body at near-normal body temperature while circulating oxygenated blood and nutrients. This allows the transplant team to assess how the liver functions before transplantation and evaluate organs that otherwise might go unused.
For TGH patients, the median time from placement on the waiting list to transplant is now less than one month. Greater access allows patients to receive transplants earlier in the course of their disease. This reduces the time they spend suffering from liver failure and the risks associated with arriving at surgery in a more critically ill condition.
“The significance of this milestone is what it means for our patients and our community,” said Dr. Kiran Dhanireddy, vice president and chief of the TGH Transplant Institute and surgical director of liver transplantation. “We have built a team with preeminent technical expertise in liver machine perfusion and made that expertise part of everyday care. This has allowed us to transplant more patients sooner, before they become as critically ill, and reduce both their time waiting and their suffering from liver disease.”
TGH’s center-based model brings this technical expertise into the hospital’s own transplant and organ perfusion teams. The hospital’s experience in managing perfusion and assessing donor livers supports decisions about which organs can be used for patients awaiting transplantation.
“Our experience goes beyond operating a machine,” said Dr. Vijay Subramanian, transplant surgeon and director of Liver Machine Perfusion at the TGH Transplant Institute. “It is about understanding how each liver performs during perfusion and applying that knowledge to transplant decisions. Having that expertise within our own team allows us to make the most of each opportunity to help a patient.”
“This accomplishment represents years of investment in people, technology and infrastructure,” said Erik Ale, manager of organ perfusion with the TGH Transplant Institute. “It is a testament to the expertise of our multidisciplinary transplant team and our commitment to advancing the future of transplantation while giving more patients a second chance at life.”
The liver perfusion milestone builds on more than 50 years of organ transplantation at Tampa General, which has performed more than 15,000 such procedures. The TGH Transplant Institute performed 895 transplants across its programs in 2025 and remains one of the nation’s top five transplant centers by volume.
ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL
Tampa General Hospital, Florida’s premier academic health system, is a 1,530-bed not-for-profit network of hospital and outpatient services spanning Florida. As the only center for Level I trauma and a comprehensive burn care center serving 23 counties, Tampa General delivers world-class care. The system’s hospitals include Tampa General Hospital, Tampa General Rehabilitation Hospital, Tampa General Behavioral Health Hospital, all in Tampa; Tampa General Brooksville, Tampa General Spring Hill and Tampa General Crystal River. Tampa General is the highest-ranked hospital in Tampa Bay in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026-2027 Best Hospitals for 11 consecutive years, with five medical specialties ranking among the top 50, two additional medical specialties ranked among the top 100 best hospital programs and two specialties ranked in the top 10% in the United States. As the first hospital in Florida to open a clinical command center for real-time situational awareness, the academic health system has elevated its digital care coordination center to the next level by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and its analytics platform across inpatient and outpatient care to ensure patients receive leading-edge care as quickly and safely as possible. Tampa General’s commitment to growing and developing its team members is recognized by four prestigious Forbes magazine rankings — in the 2026 America’s Best Large Employers ranked as the Tampa Bay region’s #1 employer in the healthcare category for the sixth year in a row, the 2026 America’s Best Employers for Company Culture, in the top 100 for the 2026 America’s Best Employers for New Grads and the 2026 America’s Best Employers for Women.
Tampa General is the area’s safety-net hospital, caring for anyone regardless of ability to pay; in fiscal year 2024, Tampa General provided a net community benefit of approximately $289.1 million in the form of healthcare for underinsured patients, community education and financial support to community health organizations in Tampa Bay. It is recognized as one of the leading adult solid organ transplant centers in the nation and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. With five medical helicopters, Tampa General transports critically injured or ill patients from surrounding counties to receive the advanced care their conditions require. Tampa General has a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center and its 32-bed Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit is the largest on the West Coast of Florida. It is home to the Muma Children’s Hospital at TGH, the Jennifer Leigh Muma 82-bed neonatal intensive care unit and a nationally accredited rehabilitation center. Tampa General’s footprint includes TGH North, which consists of three hospitals and several outpatient locations in Citrus and Hernando counties; Tampa General Medical Group Primary Care offices; TGH Family Care Center Kennedy; TGH outpatient centers; TGH Virtual Health; and TGH Imaging outpatient radiology centers throughout Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties. Tampa Bay area residents receive world-class care from the TGH Urgent Care, powered by the Fast Track network of clinics. To see a medical care professional live anytime, anywhere on a smartphone, tablet or computer, visit Virtual Health | Tampa General Hospital (tgh.org). For more information, go to www.tgh.org.
