Heart Transplant

When medications and surgery fail to manage heart failure symptoms and progression, cardiac transplant is considered as a treatment option. A heart transplant improves length and quality of life for patients with end-stage heart failure.

Screening
Before someone is placed on the heart transplant list, they are placed through a careful screening process. A multidisciplinary team of heart doctors, nurses, social workers, and bioethicists review the medical history, diagnostic test results, social history and psychosocial evaluation results to see if the patient is able to survive the heart transplant procedure and then, comply with the continuous care needed to live a long healthy life.

Waiting
Once the person is approved to be placed on the list, they must wait for a donor to become available. This process can be long and stressful. A supportive network of family and friends is needed to help the patient through this time. The health care team will monitor the patient closely to keep the patient's heart failure in control. Your transplant coordinator will discuss with you how you will be notified if a donor heart is available. The hospital must know where to contact the patient at all times should a heart become available.

The surgery
Once you are in the operating suite, the actual heart transplant procedure can take anywhere from 4 to 12 hours, or longer. Each person's case is different.

The donor heart
A surgeon from the heart transplant center goes to harvest the donor heart. The surgeon will make sure the donor heart is in good condition before beginning your surgery. The donor heart is removed by cutting the aorta and pulmonary artery in the mid-section. The atria are removed from the veins leading into the heart.

The transplant
When the donor heart arrives in the operating room, your surgeon will remove most of your heart and the donor heart will be placed in proper position and attached to your major blood vessels.

Recovery
How quick a patient recovers after heart transplant depends on many factors: age, general health, and response to the transplant. Most patients are up and about within a few days after surgery and home in about 7 to 16 days.