Surgeons at Yale New Haven Hospital performed a record number of heart transplants in 2018.
Mark D’Antonio, hospital spokesman, said YNHH surgeons performed 30 adult heart transplants last year. This is a new record for the state, which previously stood at 21 annual transplants, according to D’Antonio.
Arnar Geirsson, MD, chief of cardiac surgery at the hospital, called the recent record the result of dedication and hard work by not only surgeons, cardiologists and intensivists, but nephrologists, practice providers, nurses, transplant coordinators and support staff.
“If we continue to grow, we may exceed the number of heart transplants again,” Geirsson said. “We are very proud of this accomplishment, and the patients have done quite well.”
Heart transplants at the hospital increased by 114 percent between 2017 and 2018, according to D’Antonio. Typically, the hospital has performed an average of 10 to 15 heart transplants each year.
In 1984, the hospital performed the first heart transplant in Connecticut, according to its website.
Geirsson is one of three surgeons who performed the 30 heart transplant surgeries last year. The others include Ayyaz Ali and Pramod Bonde.
All three are associate professors of cardiac surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. In 2018, Ali was recruited to be surgical director of the hospital’s Advanced Heart Failure, Heart Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program.
All of the 30 transplant recipients in 2018 were still alive a month after their surgeries. One patient died two months after surgery, but the rest are alive, according to Geirsson.
“These people are very sick when they come to us,” Geirsson said.
Contact Michelle Tuccitto Sullo at msullo@NewHavenBiz.com
