HEART TRANSPLANTS
registry, Rodriquez received an offer for a donor heart.
Nationally the average wait time is five months.
“It was unreal,” said Maria Rodriguez, his wife. “So many mixed emotions, happiness and being scared at the same time.”
Matching a recipient with a donor heart is a complicated process.
Surgeons like Sheffield take painstaking measures to ensure the organ is a fit for their patient.
They consider size of the donor, age, blood type and prior antibodies.
Patients receive one of seven status levels to determine their priority.
“Those people who are at highest risk of dying have a higher status level,” Sheffield said. “They have first access.”
Geography factors in, too. With a four-hour window to remove the organ, transport and transplant it, proximity to the deceased is a consideration.
INNOVATION IMPROVING ODDS
To expand the donor pool, hospitals including Orlando’s AdventHealth are embracing a new method of acquiring hearts from people who die from cardiac failure.
Surgeons remove a heart from someone who died because their heart stopped — either naturally or because physicians discontinued life support — and use a new machine to keep the heart functional.
This is known as “donation after cardiac death,” or DCD transplants.
“The number of heart transplants continues to expand every year, and DCD donors have been an important part of that,” said Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer of the UNOS, the nonprofit that manages organ transplantation in the U.S.
“It has increased the number of lives saved through transplantation.”
Silvestry said AdventHealth is considered one of the most aggressive centers in the state because it will do DCD transplants as well as accept hearts from donors older than 40 and take hearts that may be damaged but can be repaired.
“Our offer acceptance rate is higher than the national average,” he said. “There are hearts that are marginal or borderline but with medical management turn out to be usable.”
By using an advanced pump to control the heart’s temperature, Silvestry said AdventHealth also is able to expand the geographic distances in which it accepts donations.
“A heart can save a life,” he said. “We are able to save patients who may have died because of the location of the availability of the organ.”
SUCCESS RATES
Nationally, 91% of heart transplant patients survive the procedure and are alive after one year, according to Stanford University. committee.
USA Lacrosse has worked to promote awareness about and standardize rules requiring chest protectors that meet the new standard at the high school and college levels. In 2021, it mandated compliant equipment for boys’ and girls’ goalies, and last year did the same for boys’ and men’s field
Florida surgeons point to advancements in immunosuppression medications, donor heart preservation techniques, and pre- and post-surgery care as factors in improved survival rates over the last decade.
Sheffield at Cleveland Clinic said his transplant team is conservative about who they will operate on to manage the survival rate.
“A heart transplant is a difficult endeavor,” explains Sheffield at Cleveland Clinic.
“In general, the risk of the surgery depends upon the state of the patient going into surgery.
We take a lot of steps to try to ensure the best we can that the negative effects of the heart surgery are mediated as much as possible going in.”
Dr. Nicolas Brozzi, a cardiothoracic surgeon at players.
“Louis Acompora and the Cornell player as well, George Boiardi, their stories were absolutely the catalyst,” Ann Kitt Carpenetti, USA Lacrosse’s vice president of safety & high performance, said of the organization’s recent standards.
“You look at those families and their losses, and
Cleveland Clinic, is on the team of doctors who prepare transplant patients pre-surgery by boosting nutritional intake, building patient strength with medication, or putting them on a mechanical device to assist their hearts.
“The stronger they are going into surgery, the smoother the post-operative phase after surgery will be,” he said.
One of the most worrisome risks after a heart transplant is the body rejecting the donor heart, which can happen even without overt symptoms. Rodriguez will have frequent heart biopsies for at least a year to confirm his body is accepting the donor heart.
“I have just had my fifth biopsy and everything was good,” Rodriguez said. “I’m back to living a normal life.” it could be anyone’s child. It’s very easy for an organization to get distracted on different priorities if you’re growing as rapidly as lacrosse has, but we really have remained focused on keeping athletes safe as we grow the sport, and honoring the memory of those young men by seeing those efforts through.”