By Saleen Martin
A Kentucky baby girl who died in January is living on through the boy she donated her heart to, and her mother was finally able to meet the boy and listen to his heartbeat earlier this year. Read the article in USA Today.
By Katrina Kincade
OXFORD – A chance meeting led to a life-saving heart transplant for a man in Oxford, Massachusetts.
“If it wasn’t for Jay, I don’t think I’d be here today and I mean that,” David Kornwolf said of his new heart and the man who helped him get it, Jay Toland. Read the article on WBZ CBS News Boston.
Sharol Lucey, one of the longest-living heart transplant patients in Oregon, honors her donor by living life to the fullest, helping others along the way
By Christine Torres Hicks
Grandkids, beach trips, family-filled Christmases and fresh cinnamon rolls are just some memories Sharol Lucey has been making the past 26 years — thanks to a heart donated in 1997.
Lucey is among the longest-living heart transplant patients in Oregon. As she has for many of the past 26 years, the 76-year-old Vancouver resident joined others who have benefited from organ transplants during an August event at Oregon Health & Science University to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation. Read the full article in OHSU News.
By Deborah Lynn Blumberg, American Heart Association News
When Ryan Scoble was a junior lacrosse player at Mercyhurst University, he came home to Cincinnati for winter break eager to see his father.
Ryan’s dad, Steve, had dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened, then enlarged. Steve had surgery to implant a machine called a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD; it essentially does the work of the left side of the heart. He was waiting for a heart transplant. And he was recovering from a stroke. Read the full story from the American Heart Association.
By Regina Schaffer
Data show pregnancy after heart transplant brings significant risks for all-cause and CV maternal morbidity as well as higher risks for cesarean delivery and hospital readmission within 1 year, highlighting the need for patient counseling.
Female patients aged 18 to 49 comprised approximately 8% of heart transplant recipients in 2021, Amanda Craig, MD, assistant professor in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at Duke University Hospital, and colleagues wrote in JACC: Heart Failure. Read more in Healio.
By Regina Schaffer
Data show pregnancy after heart transplant brings significant risks for all-cause and CV maternal morbidity as well as higher risks for cesarean delivery and hospital readmission within 1 year, highlighting the need for patient counseling.
Female patients aged 18 to 49 comprised approximately 8% of heart transplant recipients in 2021, Amanda Craig, MD, assistant professor in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at Duke University Hospital, and colleagues wrote in JACC: Heart Failure. Read the full story in Healio.
By Matt Batcheldor
In early 2020, Vanderbilt’s heart transplant program was among the first in the country to begin performing transplants using hearts from donation after circulatory death (DCD) donors. Similar to DBD (donation after brain death) donors, DCD donors have sustained devastating, non-recoverable neurologic injury.
Unlike DBD donors, however, DCD donors don’t yet meet formal brain death criteria – as such, the methods that are used for withdrawal of donor life support and surgical retrieval of DCD versus DBD organs differs. Read the full article in the VUMC Reporter.
Organ donors are some of the most selfless people in the world, so it’s always emotional when someone who received an organ from a donor can meet their family.
That’s what happened when 22-year-old Katherine Herrmann met the family of an organ donor who gave her a new heart. Hermann received her new heart last summer, after having a lifetime of heart problems and 20 surgeries, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Check out the story on Click 2 Houston.com.
By Elise Takahama
It had been less than two weeks since giving birth when a coronary artery in Adriana Rodriguez’s heart burst.
The sudden tear interrupted an early December breakfast with her mother in Bellingham, and within minutes her chest started tightening. A wave of nausea weakened her body. She wanted to curl up into a ball. Read the full story in The Seattle Times.
By Scott Buzby
In patients with end-stage HF awaiting transplant, catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation was safe and effective and was associated with improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction and AF burden, a speaker reported.
The duration of follow-up was intended to be 3 years, but due to the number of clinical events, the trial data safety monitoring board recommended to stop the study prematurely at 1.5 years. Read the full story in Healio.