For Immediate Release: March 9, 2000
NOTE TO EDITORS: A photo of Dr. Laks holding the 1000th heart is available. Both Laks and patient are available for interviews prior to patient leaving hospital.
Roxanne Yamaguchi Moster
(310) 794-0777
([email protected])
UCLA HEART TRANSPLANT PROGRAM PERFORMS LANDMARK 1,000 HEART TRANSPLANTS-FIRST IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UCLA's Heart Transplant Program, the largest in the United States, reached a landmark 1,000 heart transplants performed in the year 2000 on March 8. The Pomona resident, patient Michael Munoz, 48, father of four, received his/her new heart after a three-hour surgery performed by Dr. Hillel Laks, director of the UCLA Heart Transplant Program and professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine.
Munoz suffered from an enlarged heart possibly due to a virus he might have been exposed to three years ago. He was on the heart transplant waiting list for about two years. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), over 4,000 heart failure patients are currently on the waiting list today.
"Today we celebrate a milestone, our 1000th heart transplant," said Laks. "Heart transplantation is truly a life giving procedure that never ceases to be a rewarding experience for our entire team. We are blessed by the opportunity to take tragedy, and from it, successfully pass on new life to patients otherwise without hope. Since we began the UCLA Transplant Program, we have continued to see many innovations, which have led to improved results. It has been a wonderful gift to be able to continue this exciting program and to celebrate, with our patients, their new quality of life."
UCLA's Heart Transplant Program began in 1984 under the guidance of Laks. In the United States there are 141 heart programs. UCLA is one of only four centers performing more than 75 heart transplants per year.
Survival rates for UCLA heart transplants are higher than the national average. Overall, since the program's inception, almost 94 percent of UCLA heart transplant patients survive the first critical month after surgery and over 83 percent have at least a one year survival rate.
Patients receiving heart transplants at UCLA range in age from two weeks to 72 years of age. UCLA has transplanted 166 patients between the ages of 60-64, 66 patients between the ages of 65-69, and 15 patients 70 years and older. UCLA is the first program in Southern California - and the third in the United States -- to have performed 1,000 heart transplants.
In 1992, Laks founded the UCLA Alternative Heart Transplant Program. The program was established to offer transplantation to individuals over the age of 65 with end-stage heart disease. Donor hearts used in this program either require bypass surgery prior to transplantation or originate from older donors. Both types of hearts are often rejected by other transplant centers, but have been successfully used to extend the lives of seniors at UCLA.
Laks was the first U.S. cardiac surgeon to perform bypass surgery on a donor heart prior to transplantation. He performed a quadruple-bypass on a 53-year-old donor heart and transplanted it into a 68-year-old man. To date, the UCLA transplant team has performed 51 alternative transplants, 11 donor hearts requiring bypass surgery.
Survival rates for alternative recipients are comparable to those for standard recipients. The one-year actuarial survival rate is 83 percent for standard recipients; 82 percent for alternative recipients. In addition, alternative recipients experience similar episodes of rejection and infection compared to standard recipients.
UCLA Medical Center's Heart Transplant Program is now training its surgeons and staff to install a battery-powered artificial heart replacement device developed and manufactured by ABIOMED Inc. It is expected that this will be the first internally implanted, battery-powered artificial heart to undergo human trials as an alternative to transplantation.
UCLA expects that initial implantation of the artificial heart in patients will begin towards the end of the year 2000.
-UCLA-
For more information about the UCLA Heart Transplant Program and UCLA Alternative Heart Transplant Program, its people and resources, visit our site on the World Wide Web at http://www.healthcare.ucla.edu/transplant/
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