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A Pioneering Heart Transplant Program

The Transplant Center—Heart Transplantation

High Success Rates

The survival rate (75 percent at seven years post-transplant) at University of Minnesota Medical Center for patients is well above national averages. The longest-living heart transplant recipient was transplanted over 25 years ago. In addition to caring for patients who are waiting for transplants and newly transplanted recipients, the transplant program staff and the physicians of the University of Minnesota provide ongoing lifetime supervision of transplant-related problems. Experience and innovation have enabled most patients to leave University of Minnesota Medical Center less than two weeks after heart transplantation.

Pediatric Heart Transplantation

	The pediatric heart transplant program began in 1981. Since then, more than 60 children have received heart transplants. The program has successfully transplanted several very high-risk patients, including patients refused by other major transplant centers.
Madison Fuchs was 5 months old when Cynthia Herrington, M.D., performed her heart transplant at Fairview-University Children's Hospital.	These patients often have advanced pulmonary hypertension or advanced heart failure from congenital (inherited) heart disease. For more on Pediatric Cardiovascular capabilities at Fairview-University Children's Hospital, click here.

Alternative Donor Program

University of Minnesota Medical Center's heart transplant program is one of a few in the country that has an alternative donor program using older cardiac donors. Most transplant centers do not routinely accept older cardiac donors or older high-risk recipients. However, taking into account organ compatibility and other factors, Fairview-University's program gives some of these patients, who would otherwise never receive a transplant, a second chance at life.

Comprehensive Cardiac Services

University of Minnesota Physicians works with the staff and facilities of University of Minnesota Medical Center to offer state-of-the-art cardiac treatments and cutting-edge technologies to patients with end-stage heart failure. Tested through clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is now an alternative to transplantation. Our center has been named as one of three sites approved to train others in its use.

Currently, a new drug, Clenbuterol, not available anywhere else in the U.S., is being used in a trial to enhance recovery of heart function. It is hoped this drug will allow removal of an LVAD without transplantation, or to avoid transplant in patients with advanced heart failure.

Facts about the heart transplant program

• first heart transplant in Minnesota — 1978
• first heart/lung transplant in Minnesota — 1986
• first in world to treat heart transplant recipients with triple-therapy immunosuppression
• first heart/kidney transplant in Minnesota — 1987
• youngest heart transplant recipient was 1 month old
• most experienced circulatory assist team in the region