At The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center Comprehensive Transplant Center, we are pioneering life-altering biomedical discoveries and their translation into breakthrough health care solutions. As such, we are committed to finding better ways to treat diseases causing organ failure to improve patient outcomes after transplantation. To increase our research efforts, we have created the Total Transplant Care Program (TTCP) – this is a process to obtain patient approved biological samples as well as medical history information that can be studied to change the way we prevent, diagnose and treat disease and perform transplantations in the future.
Managed by Ohio State’s Comprehensive Transplant Center, patients can participate in the TTCP by authorizing the collection of extra tissue and specimen samples to be stored in the Transplant Biorepository. This archive of samples will be then studied, along with the patient’s medical history, to provide our researchers with valuable information to scientifically study diseases leading to organ failure.
All patient’s referred for treatment at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Transplant Center are eligible to participate in the TTCP. This includes patients under the care of a physician affiliated with the transplant center, organ transplant recipients and patients currently on our transplant waiting list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Consenting to participate in the TTCP is a lifetime partnership between the patient and Ohio State’s Comprehensive Transplant Center, with minimal time involvement for the patient.
- Patients must give written consent to participate in the TTCP. At a regularly scheduled transplant clinic visit or educational seminar, a TTCP representative will explain the program to the patient, answer questions, and obtain written consent for participation in the TTCP.
- Collection of biological samples should take minimal time. Often these are obtained during regularly scheduled clinic visits, procedures or hospital stays. Extra vials of blood may be drawn during routine blood draws and/or excess tissue such may be obtained during surgery in the form of excess tissue from the diseased organ or from a biopsy.
- Biological samples are stored in Ohio State’s Comprehensive Transplant Center Human Tissue Biorepository. This is an archive of biological samples that are expertly processed and stored until a researcher can study the samples alongside the patient’s medical record.
- Patient privacy will be maintained. All biological samples and medical history data will be coded with a unique identification number and stored in a heavily secured facility, protected within The Ohio State University’s digital network.
- Biological samples will only be used for research studies to better understand diseases that cause organ failure and outcomes after transplantation.
Absolutely not. Each patient’s placement on the transplant wait list will remain unchanged with or without participation in the TTCP. A patient’s decision will also have no effect on their relationship with their Ohio State care team or medical treatment. Patients can stop participating in the TTCP at any time.
- There is no cost to the patient to participate and does not require extra doctor visits.
- Participation in the TTCP allow patients the rare opportunity to directly contribute to the research processes at Ohio State.
- TTCP participation can help researchers discover new treatments to care for patients with diseases that lead to transplantation and diagnosis/treat infections and rejection following transplantation.
- Patients interested in learning more or taking part in the TTCP should speak with their doctor at their next transplant clinic visit. Study representatives are available for consultation at many of our clinics.
- All patient participants will be required to sign a consent form that indicates willingness to take part in the TTCP.
For any questions or concerns, please contact: