First Heart Transplant

1967 - Institutional Event

A milestone in life-extending surgery took place in Capetown, South Africa, in December 1967. Dr. Christiaan Barnard and a team of 30 people transplanted the heart of a young woman killed in an accident into Louis Washkansky, a 55-year-old patient. The operation itself was successful. But the immunosuppressive drugs that kept Washkansky’s body from rejecting the new heart prevented his immune system from fighting off other illnesses. The patient developed pneumonia and died 18 days later.

Since then, thanks to advances in drugs and surgical techniques, heart transplants are routinely performed in hospitals the world over with a success rate of nearly 95 percent. Surgery and medication can treat heart failure, but if these measures fail, the last resort is a heart transplant. About 3,000 are performed each year—a number that might be much larger if not for the shortage of donor hearts. Nearly 800 patients died in one year waiting for a suitable donor heart.

One solution for future heart recipients may be a temporary mechanical heart that gives the patient more time to wait for a donor.

Information provided by BCBSNC.

Image of coronary artery bypass surgery. Photo courtse of the National Institute of Health.