The most common transplant in the world is the cornea transplant, with roughly 185,000 performed globally each year across 116 countries. If the question is specifically about organ transplants, the kidney takes the top spot by a wide margin. In the United States alone, a record 28,142 kidney transplants were performed in 2023. To put that in perspective, the kidney waiting list that year held 144,842 candidates, dwarfing the liver list (25,634) and heart list (9,190).
Cornea Transplants Lead Overall
When you count all types of transplants, including tissues, corneal transplantation is the most frequently performed worldwide. A global survey published in JAMA Ophthalmology found approximately 185,000 corneal transplants take place each year, with about 284,000 corneas procured across 82 countries. The United States leads in cornea donation rates per capita.
Cornea transplants replace the clear front layer of the eye when it becomes clouded by disease, injury, or infection. They are relatively short procedures, typically outpatient, and the graft tissue costs far less than solid organ transplants. Average procedure costs in one European study ranged from about 950 to 3,800 euros depending on the technique used. Because corneas can be procured from deceased donors without the time pressure that organs like hearts and livers demand, supply is more manageable, though still insufficient in many lower-income countries.
Kidneys Are the Most Common Organ Transplant
Among solid organs, kidney transplants outnumber every other type combined in the US. The 28,142 kidney transplants in 2023 continued a steady upward trend that was only briefly slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. About two-thirds of transplanted kidneys come from deceased donors, with the remaining third from living donors. That living-donor option is unique to kidneys and a small share of liver transplants. Because healthy people have two kidneys and can live normally with one, a family member, friend, or even an altruistic stranger can donate.
Of the 791 pediatric kidney transplants done in 2023, roughly 70% used deceased donor kidneys and 30% came from living donors, a pattern similar to adults.
Why So Many People Need Kidneys
The sheer volume of kidney transplants reflects how common kidney failure is. End-stage renal disease, the point where kidneys can no longer sustain life without intervention, affects hundreds of thousands of Americans. The two biggest drivers are diabetes and high blood pressure, both of which damage the tiny blood vessels inside the kidneys over years or decades. Other causes include polycystic kidney disease (an inherited condition that forms cysts in the kidneys), chronic inflammation of the kidney’s filtering units, lupus, repeated urinary infections, and congenital defects present from birth.
Without a transplant, people with end-stage kidney disease rely on dialysis, which filters waste from the blood using a machine. Dialysis keeps people alive but is time-consuming, typically requiring sessions several times a week, and comes with its own health complications. A transplant offers a far better quality of life and longer survival.
How Long Transplanted Kidneys Last
A large meta-analysis pooling data from dozens of studies found that transplanted kidneys have a one-year survival rate of about 92%, meaning the organ is still functioning well in more than nine out of ten recipients after the first year. At five years, that number is roughly 80%, and at ten years about 68%. These are averages across all donor types and patient populations. Kidneys from living donors tend to last longer than those from deceased donors, partly because they spend less time without blood flow during the transplant process.
Recipients take immunosuppressive medications for the rest of the organ’s life to prevent their immune system from attacking it. Balancing these medications is one of the ongoing challenges: too little and the body rejects the kidney, too much and infection risk climbs.
Other High-Volume Transplant Types
Beyond corneas and kidneys, two other categories involve large numbers of patients each year.
Bone grafting is one of the most common tissue transplant procedures in orthopedic surgery, with an estimated 2.2 million procedures worldwide each year. These grafts repair fractures that won’t heal on their own, fill bone defects after tumor removal, or fuse spinal vertebrae. The tissue can come from the patient’s own body, a deceased donor, or synthetic materials. Volume is projected to grow by about 13% annually as populations age.
Stem cell transplants (sometimes called bone marrow transplants) crossed 80,000 procedures per year globally for the first time in 2016 and were projected to surpass 90,000 by 2018. By 2019, the cumulative total since the procedure was first developed in 1957 reached 1.5 million. These transplants are primarily used to treat blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, replacing a patient’s diseased bone marrow with healthy blood-forming cells.
The Waiting List Gap
The kidney waiting list illustrates a problem that defines organ transplantation: demand far exceeds supply. In 2023, nearly 145,000 people were on the kidney waiting list at some point during the year, yet only about 28,000 received transplants. That gap means years-long waits for many patients, during which they remain on dialysis. Wait times vary significantly by blood type, geographic region, and how closely a donor organ needs to match.
Liver and heart transplants face similar shortages on a smaller scale. The liver waiting list held about 25,600 candidates in 2023, and the heart list about 9,200. Both lists grew modestly from the prior year. For all three organs, the number of transplants has been climbing thanks to better organ preservation techniques and broader acceptance of donors who previously would have been turned down, but the gap between need and availability persists.