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What is a heart transplant?
A heart transplant is done when a diseased heart is surgically replaced with a donated human heart. This is often done for severe heart failure. A heart transplant is also called a cardiac transplant.
Why does the heart need to be replaced?
The heart is a vital organ. It pumps blood throughout the body to organs like the brain and lungs. If the heart gets damaged, then it doesn't pump very well. Eventually, the heart can start to fail. Without a new heart, a patient with severe heart failure may die from it in time.
Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Many common diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol can lead to heart disease.
How is a heart transplant performed?
If you need a heart transplant, you're first put on a waiting list. There are more people waiting for new hearts than there are available donor hearts. Getting a new organ can take up to several years. The average wait for a heart is close to a year. The United Network for Organ Sharing directs where the donated organs go. Sadly, not every person in need of a new heart is able to receive one.
As you're waiting for a new heart, your doctors will order many blood and x-ray tests. They may also try medications or other therapies. If you're a smoker, you'll have to quit.
A heart transplant is a major operation. After you're put to sleep (under general anesthesia), your chest is opened up and your heart is removed. Machines pump your blood through your body while the new heart is put in your chest. The surgeons reconnect blood vessels to the new heart and it usually starts beating. If it doesn't, it may get shocked with electricity to restart it.
Once the new heart is working, the surgeons close your chest and you're taken to the intensive care unit to recover. You'll have tubes in your chest and throat for a while, and you'll have a large scar down your chest.
How long does the procedure take?
The operation usually takes several hours. If you've had any type of chest surgery in the past, the surgery can take much longer. You may spend many weeks in the hospital recovering from the surgery.
What are the risks?
Like any other major surgery, there are always risks for bleeding, infection and death with a heart transplant.
Your body may also reject the new organ. This means your body's immune system starts to attack the donated organ. The new heart may stop working and you may need to go back on the waiting list for another replacement heart.
You'll be given many different types of medicine after a transplant, and each of those has side effects and risks. These medications are needed to prevent infection and also rejection of the organ by your body.
If you'll be having a heart transplant, it's very important to find a good heart center that has a record of performing many successful transplants.
Heart transplant surgery techniques are improving all the time. People with new hearts may live for many years.
This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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