Lessons from transplantation should benefit all cardiac patients
The information gained through heart transplants eventually may benefit thousands of cardiology patients who will never be candidates for the operation.
Once widely performed, heart transplants are rarely heard of; in fact some think they are no longer performed, and to some extent, that is true. Only one group—at Stanford University— is continuing a heart transplantation program of any scope and size.
The Stanford workers have performed 65 cardiac transplants since January 1968 and 22 of these patients are alive. The surgeon is Norman Shumway, MD, professor of surgery and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery. One of his colleagues, Donald C. Harrison, MD, the William G. Irwin professor of cardiology and chief of the cardiology division, discussed the broader implications of the transplant program on cardiology at the American Heart Association Science Writers Forum at Marco Island, Fla.
"Many people do not realize
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