ABSTRACT
The first successful heart transplant was performed in 1967 by Dr Christiaan Barnard in Cape Town in South Africa. The 55-year-old recipient was transplanted with a heart from a 25-year-old donor who died in an automobile accident. The recipient survived 18 days. The initial enthusiasm in heart transplantation was met with the sobering reality of tissue rejection and associated poor survival. As a result, the number of heart transplants declined dramatically from 100 in 1968 to 18 in 1970. It was not until the advent and maturation of immunosuppressive therapy that transplantation volume began to rise globally. In recent years, approximately 5000 heart transplants have been performed annually throughout the world with 1-year survival rates of 85-90%.
