Octav Cristea, MD

Dr. Cristea received his medical degree from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University in Ontario, Canada, after which he completed his urology residency at the University of Ottawa. He joined our faculty after completing his fellowship in abdominal transplant surgery at the Emory Transplant Center in 2020.
Dr. Cristea's clinical practice focuses on kidney and pancreas transplantation, with a special interest in urologic issues in the transplant population.
His recent research has explored increasing the number of organs available for transplantation by utilizing kidneys from donors with small renal masses. During his fellowship, he also presented an award-winning abstract at the 2020 American Transplant Congress that investigated the relationship between belatacept immunosuppression, rejection, and emergence of donor-specific antibodies in Emory's kidney transplant patient population, the largest real-world group treated with belatacept.
Dr. Cristea's articles have been published in several leading journals, including the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Canadian Urological Association Journal, and Transplantation. In addition to his work in the fields of transplantation and urology, Dr. Cristea has also published on the radiation and genitourinary effects of human space flight, contributing chapters to leading texts, including Principles of Clinical Medicine for Space Flight and Fundamentals of Aerospace Medicine.