YNHH achieves milestone with 400th heart transplant

The YNHH Heart and Vascular Center’s Daniel Jacoby, MD, (left), and Ayyaz Ali, MB ChB, joined heart transplant team members in marking the hospital’s 400th transplant.

Yale New Haven Hospital’s Heart and Vascular Center on May 12 achieved a milestone, performing its 400th heart transplant since the first in 1984.

“This accomplishment is the result of significant groundwork that the YNHH heart transplant team has worked on tirelessly,” said Arnar Geirsson, MD, Heart and Vascular Center (HVC) chief of Cardiac Surgery. “We now have a very effective system that can offer this lifesaving procedure to many more patients in Connecticut and beyond. The excellent results we have achieved over the last year put us on par with the best heart transplant programs in the country and in line with the vision of bringing cutting-edge, high-level care to our patients.”

“This achievement means that 400 individuals have been provided the opportunity for a second life,” said Daniel Jacoby, MD, director, HVC Cardiomyopathy and Comprehensive Heart Failure programs. “The increased volume of transplants in the past year reflects the incredible dedication of the Heart and Vascular Center clinical and leadership teams to providing this lifesaving therapy to the people of Connecticut and surrounding areas. As our expertise has grown, our teamwork has allowed us to provide top results to more and more individuals across the spectrum of cardiovascular disease.”

In 2018, the HVC performed 30 adult heart transplants and set a new Connecticut record. In addition, YNHH achieved a 100 percent survival rate for heart transplant recipients at 30 days post-surgery.

“Completing our 400th heart transplant at Yale New Haven Hospital follows the 45 transplants we performed over the last 10 and a half months,” said Ayyaz Ali, MB ChB, surgical director of the Advanced Heart Failure, Heart Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at YNHH. “Our approach has been very aggressive in terms of listing recipients who would benefit from a transplant but are high risk for surgery. In addition, we try to maximize the utilization of donor hearts that are offered to us. These changes have led to our growth. Importantly, despite pushing the boundaries, our outcomes remain among the best in the United States.”