Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine

Mount Sinai has emerged as a global leader in the rapidly developing field of lung transplantation, building upon its long history of expertise in treating advanced lung disease. Since the Lung Transplant Program’s inception in 1992, more than 40 patients have received new lungs at Mount Sinai, and the program is now one of only two in the Tri-State area. Mount Sinai is the only program in the Tri-State area that performs heart-lung transplantation, in addition to single and double lung transplantation.

All lung transplant patients at the Lung Transplant Program receive individualized care reflecting their specific medical, surgical and psychosocial needs – from the moment they begin their first evaluation through their extensive post-transplant follow-up care.

Mount Sinai’s Lung Transplant Program is only one aspect of a comprehensive program for adults and children with serious lung disease. Well before organ transplants were possible, Mount Sinai's reputation for medical care and research drew patients with thoracic and pulmonary diseases from around the world. Mount Sinai has always been a leader in diseases such as sarcoidosis, interstitial lung disease (ILD), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), cystic fibrosis and emphysema. Mount Sinai is one of the few designated centers that perform lung volume reduction surgery as another treatment option for advanced emphysema.

Dedicated to providing compassionate care of the highest quality, the lung transplant team comprises world-renowned physicians, surgeons, and scientists in a wide variety of organ transplant and medical specialties. Expert integration of multidisciplinary medical services is one of the major principles on which the Lung Transplant Program has been built. Working hand in hand with nurses, social workers, and support staff, surgeons and physicians coordinate the complex treatments that characterize a patient's course both before transplantation and afterward.

Experts in every medical and surgical specialty relating to lung failure and transplantation participate in the Lung Transplant Program. It draws upon the skills and expertise of not only surgeons, pulmonologists, immunologists and endocrinologists, but also nurse practitioners, registered nurses, physician's assistants, intensive care clinicians, rehabilitation medicine specialists, physical and respiratory therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, nutritionists, and financial counselors. The collaboration among these outstanding clinicians and research scientists leads to optimal patient care. In addition, the patient’s referring physicians also continue to participate in the primary pulmonary care of their patients and are kept abreast of all stages of the transplant process via telephone calls or letters from the transplant medical and surgical team.

Associated with lung transplantation at Mount Sinai has been the availability of outstanding programs with vast expertise in treating advanced lung disease such as the Sarcoidosis Center, the ILD Center which includes IPF, Cystic Fibrosis Center, Pulmonary Hypertension Center, and Interventional Bronchoscopy Center. These programs are available clinical components which provide state-of-the-art care for patients with advanced lung disease (both pre- and post- transplant) as well as offer the most advanced treatment options as an alternative to patients who are not transplant candidates.

The mission of the lung transplant program also includes research and education. Our researchers are working, independently and in major collaborations, to improve organ preservation, reduce rejection, minimize post-surgical complications and the side effects of immunosuppression, and prevent recurrence of disease. In addition, the research of Mount Sinai's leading immunologists and geneticists are expected to yield important new approaches to treatment. Educational initiatives include conferences for community physicians and other health care professionals and critically important public education activities to increase organ donation.