A surgical operation to transplant a heart into someone.
A surgical procedure to remove an irreparably diseased heart and replace it with a healthy heart from a recently deceased person. Performed since 1967, heart transplants are now the third most common form of transplantation surgery, following only kidney and cornea transplants. Heart transplant surgery extends the lives of people who would otherwise die within a short time due to advanced heart disease.
Heart transplant involves the replacement of a patient’s damaged or diseased heart with a healthy heart obtained from a deceased donor. Transplant recipients typically suffer from advanced coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease). During the procedure, a heart-lung machine takes over the heart’s function. Most of the diseased heart is removed, but the back walls of the upper chambers (atria) are retained. The donor heart’s ventricles (lower chambers) are then connected to the remaining parts of the recipient’s heart. As the transplanted heart lacks a nerve supply, patients often experience a high resting heart rate and no variation in blood pressure from day to night.
Following the immediate post-operative period, the prognosis is favorable. Nevertheless, patients must confront the long-term challenges commonly linked to other types of transplant surgeries, such as the risks of rejection and infection.