SRTR rankings · Heart-Lung · November 2025 cohort
Heart-Lung transplant centers by 1-year survival
12 heart-lung programs meet SRTR's minimum case-volume floor in the November 2025 cohort. Rankings order risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival, not a recommendation to choose a center.
This data is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Always consult your transplant team for decisions about your care. Rankings show centers by highest survival rate and do not constitute a recommendation.
According to SRTR Program-Specific Reports (November 2025), 12 heart-lung programs meet the published case-volume floor and average 90.3% risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival; CHI St. Luke's Health Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center leads at 100.0%.
Survival is not volume
CHI St. Luke's Health Baylor Co… in Texas leads risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival at 100.0% (#1 of 12) but ranks #12 by program volume on 5 transplants (thin SRTR sample); Stanford Health Care in California leads volume at 30 (#1 of 12) with 82.1% survival (rank #10).
- 100.0%
- CHI St. Luke's Health Baylor Co… survival #1
- #12
- CHI St. Luke's Health Baylor Co… volume rank
- 30
- Stanford Health Care transplants #1
- #10
- Stanford Health Care survival rank
SRTR risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival and transplant counts come from Program-Specific Reports (November 2025). Higher survival is not a referral recommendation; high-volume programs accept broader candidate pools.
Heart-Lung ranking picture
the ranked set performed 142 heart-lung transplants combined; 28 candidates sit on these programs' combined waitlists.
- 12
- Programs ranked
- 90.3%
- Mean 1-yr survival
- 28
- Combined waitlist
Survival rates are SRTR risk-adjusted estimates for historical cohorts. Centers accepting higher-risk patients may report lower rates while providing appropriate care.
What to do with this
Use the ranked board to shortlist programs, then open a center page for the full SRTR extract.
- Browse every indexed transplant center. All centers
- Compare two centers side by side. Compare centers
- See how survival rates are measured. Survival rates guide
Rankings reprint SRTR survival and volume fields for educational reference; they are not a referral ranking.
Every figure on PlainTransplant is rendered directly from SRTR Program-Specific Reports data, no number is typed in by an editor. Organ rankings for Heart-Lung are ordered from SRTR Program-Specific Reports risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival; no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a correction. Data current as of November 2025.
Centers with highest 1-year graft survival rate from SRTR November 2025, limited to programs reporting at least 5 heart-lung transplants in the period (below that, a single case can swing the rate by 20+ points). 12 centers meet that floor.
Note: Survival rate alone does not determine the best center for your situation. Centers that accept higher-risk patients or sicker patients may have lower survival rates. Discuss your options with your transplant team.
Top 10 heart-lung programs by 1-year graft survival
Risk-adjusted SRTR estimates for programs meeting the minimum case-volume floor. Higher bar = higher reported survival in this cohort.
What this shows: the bar behind each 1-yr Survival figure is scaled to CHI St. Luke's Health Baylo…'s rate (100.0%), the highest in this cohort. Hover a row for that center's exact share of the leader and its rank out of 12.
| Rank | Center | State | 1-yr Survival | 3-yr Survival | Transplants | Waitlist stock | Additions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHI St. Luke's Health Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center | Texas | 66.7% | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 | Houston Methodist Hospital | Texas | 50.0% | 12 | 4 | 5 | |
| 3 | Rochester Methodist Hospital (Mayo Clinic) | Minnesota | 75.0% | 18 | 3 | 10 | |
| 4 | Temple University Hospital | Pennsylvania | 50.0% | 6 | 0 | 0 | |
| 5 | University of California San Diego Medical Center | California | 75.0% | 7 | 1 | 2 | |
| 6 | UT Southwestern Medical Center/ | Texas | 0.0% | 9 | 4 | 4 | |
| 7 | New York University Medical Center | New York | 66.7% | 14 | 1 | 5 | |
| 8 | NY Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Univ. Medical Center | New York | 75.0% | 10 | 5 | 6 | |
| 9 | Duke University Hospital | North Carolina | 60.0% | 7 | 1 | 6 | |
| 10 | Stanford Health Care | California | 69.0% | 30 | 2 | 13 | |
| 11 | The Cleveland Clinic Foundation | Ohio | 75.0% | 11 | 6 | 7 | |
| 12 | University of Alabama Hospital | Alabama | 100.0% | 13 | 1 | 4 |
Featured Heart-Lung Programs
A quick-scan card view of top heart-lung transplant programs. Use the full ranking table above for complete comparisons.
How to Read This Ranking
Survival rankings for heart-lung transplantation reflect a single, well-defined outcome: the probability that the transplanted organ remains functional one year after surgery, adjusted for differences in patient mix. Two centers reporting the same raw survival number can sit very far apart in a risk-adjusted ranking when one accepts a much sicker waiting list than the other. SRTR's hierarchical Bayesian models lean toward the national average for low-volume centers, so a small program with five transplants in the cohort window will move less in either direction than a large program with five hundred, the ranking is most stable for centers in the middle of the volume distribution.
Risk adjustment matters because not every heart-lung candidate carries the same baseline risk. Recipients with advanced disease, multiple prior failed transplants, donor-recipient size mismatches, or immunological sensitization will have lower expected survival before the procedure begins. SRTR's models subtract this expected survival from observed survival to produce a center-specific performance estimate. A center that consistently accepts the most complex referrals, for instance, regional referral hospitals taking patients other programs decline, can outperform on risk-adjusted survival while reporting lower raw numbers. The ranking column you see here is the adjusted figure, not the raw one.
Patients and referring clinicians use these rankings as one signal among several. Distance from home, insurance coverage, surgeon volume in your specific subtype, willingness to accept marginal donors, and program-specific eligibility criteria all weigh into a real-world transplant decision. The rankings here describe the typical outcome envelope a program has produced in the SRTR cohort window, they do not, and cannot, predict your individual outcome. Always discuss center selection with your transplant nephrologist, hepatologist, cardiologist, or pulmonologist, who can correlate published survival data with your specific clinical profile.
Caveats and Limitations
- SRTR Program-Specific Reports are released semi-annually (May and November). Rankings shown here reflect the most recent published cohort; some single-event changes at a program may not yet be visible.
- Programs below SRTR's minimum case-volume threshold are excluded from comparative rankings to preserve statistical reliability. Such programs may still be active and may report individual outcomes elsewhere.
- One-year graft survival is the SRTR's primary public outcome but not the only metric that matters. Patient survival, three-year graft survival, time to transplant from listing, and post-transplant readmission rates each tell a different story about program performance.
- Geographic concentration of transplant centers means a top-ranked program may be impractical for patients in rural or under-served regions. The Compare and State views allow filtering by geography to surface programs that are realistic options for a specific patient.
Data Sources
- SRTR Program-Specific Reports (November 2025 release) - risk-adjusted 1-year graft survival estimates for heart-lung transplant programs. srtr.org
- OPTN heart-lung allocation policy - policy governing heart-lung distribution nationally. optn.transplant.hrsa.gov
About These Rankings
This data is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Always consult your transplant team for decisions about your care. Rankings show centers by highest survival rate and do not constitute a recommendation.
Source: SRTR Program-Specific Reports, November 2025 Centers are ranked by estimated 1-year graft survival probability for adult recipients. Centers without sufficient case volume are excluded per SRTR statistical methodology
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.