heart transplant Archives

VUMC tops in nation for number of heart transplants performed last year

Jan. 16, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center tied for first place as the busiest heart transplant program by volume in the United States in 2019.

Pediatric heart, liver transplant programs reach new milestones

Jan. 16, 2020—Two transplant programs at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt reached milestones in 2019 for performing record numbers of heart and liver transplantations in a calendar year.

Hepatitis C–positive donors a viable option to expand heart donor pool

Dec. 20, 2019—Hepatitis C-positive heart donors offer a strategy to safely expand the donor pool and allow more patients to undergo transplant.

More congenital heart patients becoming transplant candidates

May. 2, 2019—Patients with a form of congenital heart disease — having only one ventricle (pumping chamber) — are now living longer lives due to the successful surgical and medical treatments they receive as children.

Tim Lowell, here with his wife, Ginger, was Tennessee’s first total artificial heart transplant patient. He recently received a permanent donor heart.

First artificial heart patient gets permanent replacement

Mar. 28, 2019—Tim Lowell of Hernando, Mississippi, received the first total artificial heart in the state of Tennessee when the cardiac surgery team at Vanderbilt Health placed the device in his chest on Sept. 26, 2018. The mechanical heart kept him alive for nearly three months until a matching human donor heart became available and he was transplanted on Dec. 16, 2018, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Vanderbilt set new heart, overall transplant record in 2018

Jan. 14, 2019—Vanderbilt University Medical Center set a new record for total transplants among its five organ specialties in 2018 with more than 500 transplants.

Transplant Center leads way in using hearts from hepatitis C donors

Jul. 12, 2018—Medical teams at the Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC) are leading the way in utilization of hepatitis C-exposed donors for heart transplantation.

Patient’s efforts help shine light on plasma cell disorder

Apr. 5, 2018—Charlotte Haffner, Vanderbilt’s first patient to undergo a heart transplant followed by a stem cell transplant to treat a plasma cell disorder called primary AL amyloidosis, now she dedicates her time to raising awareness about the rare disease.