Heart Transplant in Children and Quality of Life Afterwards
Describe what you do.
My name is Luca Vricella and I currently head the pediatric heart transplantation and pediatric heart surgery program at Johns Hopkins. It’s a busy service, we do about 300 cases a year. We’re one of the leading centers on the East Coast in regards to pediatric heart transplantation.
Briefly describe heart transplant surgery.
So heart transplantation is a very orchestrated effort. It takes time for these cases to take place and there’s a donor team and there’s a recipient team. Sometimes you’re on both sides of the fence. I a lot of times will go and retrieve a heart and then implant it, which translates into, for me, a twelve to sixteen hour operation. For the patient, it depends on what kind of procedure the patient has had before. If the child has never had an operation before, then the operation could be less than four hours. If the child has had multiple operations before, then the operation may be six or eight hours
What is the long term prognosis for children who have had a heart transplant, how is their future quality of life?
Pediatric heart transplantation is a very consolidated form of therapy for heart disease. And the…not only do you change quality, but of course you have a big impact on longevity of these patients. And quality of life is basically they go back to doing things that every child does. They participate in sports, they do well in school. I mean, I enjoy personally, as a physician caring for these patients,