One year ago, on Sept. 29, 2005, The Nebraska Medical Center completed its first transplant in its newly reorganized heart transplant program. Since then, 17 heart transplants have been performed at the medical center.
“The program has exceeded our expectations,” said Kim Duncan, M.D., chief of cardiothoracic surgery and professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “This is the first time that any heart transplant program in the state has exceeded more than 12 transplants in one year.”
Mark Maeder will never forget the moment a year ago when he received the call that a donor heart was available. Maeder’s own heart had become very weak from cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can be passed from generation to generation or caused by heart disease. He’d lost about 90 percent of his heart function and in the weeks before his transplant, he wasn’t able to work or actively play with his kids.
Within hours of the surgery, Maeder showed immediate improvement. Now, one year later, there’s a dramatic difference.
“Everyday I’m able to do more and more,” said Maeder. “I’m working full time again and I’m able to play sports with my daughter and help my son fix up his car. My wife tells me all the time that the donor family didn’t just save my life — they saved my children’s lives too. I couldn’t bear the thought of them growing up without their dad.”
Maeder and his family plan to celebrate the one year anniversary with a party.
“It’s a way to say thank you to our friends and all of the families from church and my kids’ schools who went out of their way for us when I was in the hospital,” Maeder said.
“It was the beginning of a new life,” Larry Rockwell said, refering to his heart transplant at The Nebraska Medical Center on July 8, 2006. “And the end to a long road filled with illness, physical, emotional and personal struggles and intense medical care.”
For 25 years, the 54-year-old Council Bluffs man had battled through numerous heart attacks, surgeries, tachycardia, more surgeries and finally, heart failure, which left him with a prognosis of less than two years to live.
“Today, I feel 100 times better,” Rockwell said. “I have more strength and energy and an overall sense of well-being and peace. I don’t get short of breath every time I turn around. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom.”
Transplantation is the last of many treatment options for patients with advanced heart failure. Heart failure cardiologists first explore other therapies ranging from medication to the use of mechanical heart support devices before listing a patient for transplant. Candidates for transplantation are generally under 70 years of age and have no other organ problems.
“When a patient is listed for a heart transplant, it is in essence, a last option,” said Mohammed Quader, M.D., director of Heart Transplantation and Ventricular Assist Device Therapy at The Nebraska Medical Center and associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at UNMC. “Patients who don’t have a transplant generally survive less than two years. By 18 months, 80 percent will die.”
A heart transplant completely reverses those numbers, Dr. Quader said.
“At two years, survival is 85 to 88 percent,” Dr. Quader said . “After five years, survival is 70 percent or more.”
Once the donor heart has been implanted, the surgical team monitors the patient closely in the intensive care unit for two to three days. Once deemed stable, the patient is encouraged to begin getting up and moving around.
Careful monitoring is done to ensure the body is accepting the new organ. Patient education about medications and other post-operative issues also begins in order to prepare the patient for discharge.
If all goes smoothly, most patients are ready to go home within two weeks.
Rockwell was ready to go home in record time, just eight days after his heart transplant. He is now concentrating on his family, his church, exercising and “just feeling good for a change,” something he hasn’t experienced in many years.
Making a program like this successful takes the collaboration and commitment of many individuals, Dr. Duncan said, from administrators to the numerous health care professionals involved in the transplant process including physicians, nurses, physician assistants, perfusionists, anesthesiologists, transplant coordinators and Donate Life Services staff.
“Part of our success comes from the confidence the patients have in us,” said Ioana Dumitru, M.D., transplant cardiologist and medical director of the Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant program at The Nebraska Medical Center, as well as assistant professor of cardiology at UNMC. “They are understood and they are being treated well. The medical aspect is just one part of the program, but the social aspect is just as important. We have a wonderful support team who really make the program what it is.”
Dr. Quader said the fact that The Nebraska Medical Center is already a major transplant center means all of the support services to create a world-class cardiac program are in place.
“This step promises to take us to a new level of excellence in cardiac care,” Dr. Quader said. “The level of dedication for the program among the institution and health care professionals here is extraordinary. I see nothing but continued success in the future.”