Tissue transplantation is a term that covers a wide variety of surgeries. Transplant tissues include bone, tendons, cartilage, connective tissue, skin, corneas, sclera, heart valves, and vessels. Next to blood transfusion, tissue transplantation is the most common allograft transplant, meaning a transplant of tissue from one person to another. More than 1.5 million tissue transplants and 40,000 cornea transplants are performed in the U.S. annually. The Transplant Services Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center supplies approximately 8,500 transplantable allografts a year.

Just a few of the ways that tissue transplants can help patients include the following:

• Skin transplants may be given to people who have been severely burned or who have major skin loss from injury or disease.
  
  
• Bone and ligament tissue may be transplanted to people with bone or spinal injuries, restoring function and preventing amputation.
  
  
• Heart valves may be transplanted to people with heart defects or disease.
  
  
• Arteries, veins and femoral vessels may be given to patients with compromised blood circulation.
  
  
• Corneas may be given to patients to prevent blindness or restore sight  and are a highly successful form of transplantation.

The physicians at UT Southwestern Medical Center perform thousands of successful tissue transplants each year. In addition, UT Southwestern's Transplant Services Center provides services to hospitals and physicians throughout Texas, the nation and worldwide.  This clinical and academic center specializes in all areas of care, from donation to transplantation, with a full-service tissue bank that procures, processes, stores and distributes tissue allografts.

In addition, the medical center’s clinical trials program gives patients access to treatments often unavailable at other health-care facilities. Depending on the specific condition, UT Southwestern can offer patients therapies that show particular promise years before the therapies are offered to the public.

Our experience in conducting some of the most advanced research into tissue transplants enables UT Southwestern to provide our patients with the best possible medical treatments – all in a caring and compassionate environment.