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UMC Performs 600th Heart Transplant
University Medical Center has completed its
600th heart transplant, giving a new heart to a 28-year-old Glendale
man.
Paul Edwards, who was discharged yesterday, suffered from idiopathic
cardiomyopathy, a condition that made his heart become enlarged and
stiff. The cause was unknown.
"It was huge," Francisco Arabía,
MD, said of the diseased heart, likening its size to a cantaloupe. Of
all the hearts he has removed during transplants, this one contracted
the least, said Dr. Arabia, who led the transplant team.
The procedure went smoothly, taking about three
and a half hours to replace the patient's heart with one from a donor
of about the same age, Dr. Arabía said. He added that the donor
heart "was half the size of the one he had."
UMC's and Arizona's first heart transplant
was performed by Jack G. Copeland III, MD - chief of cardiovascular
and thoracic surgery and co-director of the University of Arizona Sarver
Heart Center - on March 27, 1979. In 1988, UMC performed the world's
first coronary artery bypass on a transplanted heart. The following
year, UMC performed the state's first heart transplant on a patient
with cystic fibrosis.
Reaching No. 600 and achieving high success
rates "show how consistent the team has been," Dr. Arabía
said. "It has been able to provide a good service to the Tucson
community as well as to the state. The results continue to be among
the best in the world."
UMC's heart transplant survival rates are 93
percent at one year and 78 percent at five years. That compares with
the national averages of 85.5 percent and 70 percent nationally, according
to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Several factors have made the transplant program
successful, Dr. Arabía said, but none is more important than
having organs available for those who need them. "All this can
be done because of the donor families."
If more people donated organs, UMC would
be well past 600 heart transplants, he added.
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