Health Information - Heart Transplants

Heart Transplants - 40 Years Later

The first heart transplant was assisted by Dr. Edward Stinson in 1968. While the studies of heart transplants in dogs had proved successful, the doctors had no knowledge of organ rejection.

While the rejection was a set back mentally, the operating physicians and those involved with heart transplant studies new the implications benefiting health were there. Stinson believed heart transplants would, "evolve into a genuine therapy" and he was right.

Over the next 40 years, doctors perfected the heart transplant procedure and introduced medications to help the body accept the new heart. However, no matter how perfect the procedure may be, heart transplants remain very rare due to a lack of donor hearts.

At a symposium being held at Stanford University, doctors and patients will come together to celebrate 40 years of heart transplants and evolution.

The first heart transplants were not successful and the majority of the patients died within the first year of surgery. The first long term survivor did not present until more than 15 heart transplants had been performed. Patients often died due to Immune system rejection of the heart.

Thanks to the introduction of new medications, more than 86% of heart transplant patients survivor for one year after having the transplant, 75% of men live for more than 5 years and more than 66% of women live for more than 5 years after surgery.

While these numbers may not seem worth the risk and recovery associated with a heart transplant, the procedure is performed on patients who have terminal heart disease that is untreatable.

Heart disease is one of the most common conditions in the United States, but only 2,100 heart transplants are performed yearly. The lower numbers are directly associated with the lack of hearts available for transplant. Hearts are only viable for transplant when the patient is brain dead but the body is still alive, i.e... on life support.

Early concerns about donating across gender and racial lines have been erradicated through medical practice.