For the second year in a row, Cedars-Sinai Institute sets new standard for heart transplants. It is also the leading Institute for Heart Transplantation in the US for the fifth consecutive year.
The centre’s Heart Transplant Program was established in 1988 and since then,1097 patients have undergone heart transplantation here. Cedars-Sinai completed 120 adult heart transplants and two adult heart-lung transplants in 2014 and has set a new national standard for the most adult heart transplants performed in a single year.
A total of 122 adult transplants were performed in a single year in 2014 and 117 adult heart transplants and two adult heart-lung transplants were performed in 2013. This is the most heart transplants performed at a single medical centre in one year as compared to 98, a record set in 2005.
Cedars-Sinai is also a leader in heart transplantation using the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart, a device that is implanted in patients suffering from end-stage biventricular heart failure. Cedars-Sinai surgeons implanted 23 and 24 Total Artificial Hearts in 2013 and 2014 respectively. This was more than any other SynCardia Certified Center worldwide.
"Heart failure continues to plague Western society at an epidemic pace, and transplantation is the last best hope for patients who suffer from advanced disease,” said Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. “For the past five years at Cedars-Sinai, we have done more heart transplants annually than any other centre. Our patients benefit from this immense experience, which translates to superior outcomes in terms of survival and quality of life."
Andrew S. Klein, MD, MBA, director of the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center and the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair of Surgery and Transplant Medicine highlights the fact that heart transplants give patients a second chance of life. However, there are still more than 123,000 Americans on the organ transplant waiting list. That is why it is important to encourage more people to sign up as organ donors.
Jon Kobashigawa, MD, director of the Heart Transplant Program and the DSL/Thomas D. Gordon Chair in Heart Transplantation Medicine points out that Cedars-Sinai's outstanding outcomes are accompanied with one-year survival rates of approximately 90 percent. This success can be attributed to outstanding team effort and the use of leading-edge technology.
Cedars-Sinai was the first to use thrombolytic enzymes to dissolve blot clots in the heart; they were the first to describe vasospastic angina syndrome; physicians at this centre invented the Swan-Ganz catheter; and physicians in the innovative endovascular interventional cardiology program have performed more minimally invasive heart valve repairs and replacements than any other medical centre.
Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Image Credit: USA News
