Last year, surgeons performed 148 lung transplants, the most in a single year since Northwestern's lung transplant program began 10 years ago.

Medical advances allowed doctors to perform a record 148 transplants in 2024 — the most in the program’s 10-year history — and reduced the median wait time for a transplant to just four days.

Northwestern Medicine has broken a record for the number of lung transplants, thanks to new technology to widen the donor pool and shorten patient wait times.

Doctors at Northwestern Medicine say medical innovations helped them achieve two medical milestones last year: the largest number of lung transplants in a single year and the shortest median wait time for transplants.

Northwestern Medicine is celebrating a milestone after performing a record number of lung transplants using new technology known as “lungs in a box.”