THURSDAY, May 7, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- One-year mortality rates are increased when transplant surgeons switch between different organ types in consecutive surgeries, according to a study published online April 30 in Nature Human Behaviour.
Jiayi Liu, from the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, and colleagues analyzed national registry data for 316,742 U.S. transplants from 2007 to 2019 to provide causal evidence of switching costs in the context of organ transplantation.
The researchers found that when surgeons switch organ types across consecutive surgeries, there is a 0.66 percentage point increase in patients' one-year posttransplant mortality (14.8 percent relative increase from baseline). Through structured scheduling, longer intervals between procedures, and greater surgeon experience, these risks can potentially be mitigated.
"We found a striking pattern. When a switch occurs on the same day, the mortality rate for those patients rises sharply -- from about 4.5 percent to 7.2 percent," Liu said in a statement. "If you have even a night to rest between surgeries, the switching cost is much lower, and with two days in between, the effect is essentially gone."
