Heart Transplantation News and Research

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A heart transplant is an operation in which the diseased heart in a person is replaced with a healthy heart from a deceased donor. Ninety percent of heart transplants are performed on patients with end-stage heart failure.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is damaged or weakened and can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. "End-stage" means the condition has become so severe that all treatments, other than heart transplant, have failed.

New home for children's emergency care opens in upper Manhattan

The new Alexandra and Steven Cohen Pediatric Emergency Department at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center opens tomorrow, Thursday, June 23, significantly expanding access to the highest level of emergency pediatric care for families in the region.

22 Jun 2011

New home for children's emergency care opens in upper Manhattan

22 Jun 2011

Inorganic nitrate reduces rate of heart dysfunction caused by doxorubicin

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have found that nutrient supplementation, like the kind that is found in leafy greens, spinach and lettuce, may reduce the damage to the heart caused by a powerful anti-cancer drug.

20 May 2011

59-year-old enrolls in study of stem cell transplantation during cardiac bypass

A 59-year-old Houston man became the first individual in the United States to enroll in a study using stem cell transplantation during cardiac bypass to treat severe heart failure.

12 May 2011

New results from largest multicenter clinical trial for heart transplant patients be released at ISHLT 2011

New results from the largest multicenter clinical trial for heart transplant patients will be released this week at the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation 31st Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions in San Diego. Results show clinical benefit for the use of Everolimus in heart transplant patients.

16 Apr 2011

All Children's Hospital joins Johns Hopkins Medicine

All Children's Hospital, in St. Petersburg, Fla., is now a part of the Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS) and a fully integrated member of Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM). All Children's is the first U.S. hospital outside of the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region to become integrated with JHM, which includes the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System.

4 Apr 2011

Study findings on novel ST2 cardiac biomarker to be presented at ACC 2011

A novel cardiac biomarker, ST2, will be highlighted in three presentations at the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans this week.

1 Apr 2011

Attacks by specific type of immune cells cause inflammations of heart muscle

Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center, jointly with colleagues in the United States, have found out that inflammations of the heart muscle are caused by attacks of a specific type of immune cells. These immune cells attack the body's own tissue because during their maturation they did not have the chance to develop tolerance against a protein that is only found in the heart muscle.

30 Mar 2011

People of all ages and both sexes can have congestive heart failure

Elizabeth Taylor died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79 on March 23. Her death raises awareness of this serious condition that affects an estimated five million Americans.

29 Mar 2011

First continuous-flow total artificial heart transplant performed at THI

Doctors at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital have successfully implanted the first continuous-flow total artificial heart in a desperately ill patient facing imminent death.

24 Mar 2011

U-M researcher endorses new concepts designed to improve kidney allocation

Providing kidney transplants to patients with the best probability of longer survival would reduce repeat transplant operations and improve life span after kidney transplant, says a U-M researcher in a commentary published in the New England Journal of Medicine March 16.

18 Mar 2011

Stem cell therapy can reduce heart size, scar tissue and improve function in cardiac patients

Researchers have shown for the first time that stem cells injected into enlarged hearts reduced heart size, reduced scar tissue and improved function to injured heart areas, according to a small trial published in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.

18 Mar 2011

Texas Children's completes first phase of certification to implant SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart

Texas Children's Hospital and SynCardia Systems, Inc. announced today that Texas Children's has become the world's first pediatric hospital to complete the first phase of certification to implant the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart. The hospital intends to use the Total Artificial Heart as a bridge to transplant for their patients who received a heart transplant as children and now require mechanical support as a bridge to their second transplant.

11 Mar 2011

Cedars-Sinai earns excellence in 2010 adult heart transplants

The Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Comprehensive Transplant Center performed the most adult heart transplants of any U.S. medical center in 2010, according to government statistics released today.

10 Mar 2011

First implantable heart transplant using new LVAD performed at University of Utah Hospital

Surgeons at University of Utah Hospital have performed the hospital's first implant of a new-generation left ventricular assist device using the HeartWare HVAD. The tiny, partial artificial heart device is being used as part of a national research study for patients with advanced heart failure who are not candidates for heart transplantation.

5 Mar 2011

High blood pressure medications useful even in those without hypertension: Study

Researchers have studied existing evidence to suggest that people who have had a stroke or a heart attack might benefit from taking blood pressure medications, even if they do not have high blood. They noted that for every 1,000 people taking the drugs in clinical trials, on average 15 fewer died from heart disease than when the patients got dummy treatment. The study however could not explain the cause for this benefit. The study, which was funded by Tulane University and the National Institutes of Health, was published in the March 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

1 Mar 2011

UC San Diego patient wakes up with two beating hearts

This Valentine's Day, Tyson Smith woke up with a brand new outlook and two beating hearts - his old failing heart and a newly transplanted heart. "I can tell that I am getting stronger every day," said Smith.

19 Feb 2011

Story of the heart: Literally as well as metaphorically

Stephen Amidon, a novelist and co-author of The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart, writes about the story of the human heart through the world of science, history, culture and our bodies with his brother Thomas who is a practicing cardiologist in Montana and a former medical director of The Hope Heart Institute. Thomas said, “Ironically, I did an angiogram on a patient last week who had very calcified and hardened arteries that were almost precisely in the shape of the Valentine heart… But I don't think the early depicters of that heart shape had access to the same view of the heart that I have.”

14 Feb 2011

FDA approves IDE Supplement for third patient allotment in HeartWare Ventricular Assist System ADVANCE trial

HeartWare International, Inc., a leading innovator of less invasive, miniaturized circulatory support technologies that are revolutionizing the treatment of advanced heart failure, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved an IDE Supplement that allows HeartWare to enroll a third allotment, of 94 additional patients, in its "ADVANCE" bridge-to-transplant clinical trial under a Continued Access Protocol (CAP).

25 Jan 2011

NHLBI, HeartWare award $13.3M to study benefits of heart devices for heart failure

The University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and the University of Pittsburgh have been awarded $13.3 million to explore the potential benefits of heart devices for the large and growing group of Americans with heart failure.

24 Jan 2011