Hearts of Gold: Inova’s Heart Transplant Program Turns 30

bogarLinda J. Bogar, MD, is board certified in thoracic and cardiac surgery. 

This month, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first heart transplant ever performed on the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus. Among those celebrating are retired cardiothoracic surgeon Edward Lefrak, MD, who performed that first transplant in 1986, and the patient who received it – one of only a dozen heart transplant recipients nationwide who have lived more than 25 years since their lifesaving surgery.

As if that’s not enough to celebrate, the Inova Lung Transplant program will turn 25 in 2017. These dual anniversaries make this a great time to reflect on what the Inova Transplant Center has accomplished in the last three decades – and to consider how we can make our programs even better in the decades to come.

shutterstock_99904613Creating a Transplant Program

Thirty years ago, organ transplants were still pretty new in the United States. Dr. Lefrak wanted to start a transplant program at Inova, and he had an impressive ally – Dr. Christiaan Bernard, the South African surgeon who performed the world’s first heart transplant in 1967.

Dr. Bernard actually accompanied Dr. Lefrak to Washington, DC, to lobby for a “certificate of need,” which would allow surgeons to perform heart transplants at Inova.

Still, after receiving the okay to go ahead, Lefrak and his team weren’t quite sure what to expect. After that first transplant, many of them stayed at the hospital around the clock for several days, not wanting to stray too far from their patient! But that patient did and is doing very well, and the program has become a great success.

Five years later, Inova added a lung transplant program, and thanks to generous organ donors and our skilled team, we have given the gift of life to hundreds of heart and lung transplant patients.

Transplant Science Evolves

Things have changed a lot since the first years of heart and lung transplants. As our programs have grown, we’ve developed a much more team-based approach to transplants. Today, we have a dedicated team that includes cardiologists, surgeons, pharmacists, nutritionists, social workers and others.

Medical science has also advanced significantly over these last three decades. For example, after receiving organ transplants, patients must take medications called immunosuppressant drugs to prevent their bodies from rejecting their new organ. Today, we have better drug options, so organ rejection is less common than it used to be.

Looking to the Future

In the next 30 years, we hope to continue to develop our program to help even more patients. Currently, we perform about 20 heart transplants and 20 lung transplants each year. We’d like to grow those numbers. To do that, we hope to work with more community hospitals to increase referrals for heart failure patients.

We also want to continue to improve the quality of our care by incorporating new technologies. For instance, we now offer many heart failure patients a ventricular assist device (VAD), a mechanical pump that can help them survive until a heart becomes available for transplant. We’re also testing newer VAD devices that we hope will be even better at improving care and quality of life for our patients.

Additionally, we’re exploring new technologies and guidelines that might allow us to acquire lungs from a broader range of possible donors. For instance, we are considering a new system that can actually improve lung tissue after it has been removed from a donor, making it more suitable for transplant.

Ultimately, our goal is to make more organ transplants available to the people who need them and to ensure those patients receive the very best care.

Learn more about the Inova Transplant Center, the most active transplant program in the Northern Virginia and Washington, DC, area.

4 Comments

  1. Marjorie Inskeep, RN on December 28, 2016 at 9:37 pm

    I worked with Dr Lefrak in the early days from 1978–1982. What a great learning experience it was. Open heart surgery was just taking off and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.

  2. Elsie on December 30, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    On April 12, 2010, I received a heart transplant at Inova Fairfax Hospital. The kindness of the transplant team, surgeons, nurses, and other staff members was above their call of duty. I am so grateful to the donor for the unselfish act of love that made it possible for me to make more beautiful memories with my family and friends. Praise to God and the wonderful transplant team at Inova!

  3. Laurie on May 2, 2019 at 1:03 am

    It was an amazing time to work at Inova Fairfax. I worked the evening shift inside the critical care pharmacy. Physicians from everywhere stopped at our window with their coolers in hand looking for the cardiovascular OR. Each time, their faces showed the excitement. The excellence of the CVICU team and transplant team was clear to everyone. I remember attending (witnessing) a bedside wedding just before a transplant.

  4. Jonathan on March 14, 2020 at 10:38 pm

    I have been a patient of Dr. Stephen Rosenfeld since stay at inova alexandria ( where i was born in 1970) in Oct 2018.
    His team at Va Heart including Dr. PARENTE, Dr. MCSwain, and a doctor at Fairfax Hospital( went to Brown and UVA- forgot his name..sorry) have done great work with me on my CHF.
    Now I have normal heart function.
    Thank U Inova !!

Leave a Comment