Heart Transplant Expert
Asan Medical Center in Seoul has performed its 500th heart transplant this year, 22 years after the country’s first surgery in 1992. A 50-year-old woman who suffered from terminal heart failure received the country’s first heart transplant operation in November, 1992. She is 72 years old now and is still in good health.
Asan Medical Center performed the 500th heart transplant in early November this year on a 3-year-old child who suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy. This transplant was 22 years after its first success. The patient has regained 70 percent of normal heart functions after the transplant.
The medical center’s 500 heart transplants account for 57 percent of the 880 operations performed in the country as of November this year.
The survival rates for people receiving heart transplants from Asan Medical Center are 95 percent after one year, 86 percent after five years, and 76 percent after 10 years. These rates are the same level as those of Stanford University and the Texas Heart Institute in the U.S., two of the world’s top institutions for heart transplants.
Kim Jae-joong, director of the heart transplant program at Asan Medical Center, said, “Unlike other organ transplants, heart transplants are only possible when brain-dead patients donate their hearts. This is why we need to pay more attention to organ donation.”