ISBN: | 978-5-5121-7567-5 |
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplantation, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. As of 2007 the most common procedure was to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor (cadaveric allograft) and implant it into the patient. The patient`s own heart is either removed (orthotopic procedure) or, less commonly, left in place to support the donor heart (heterotopic procedure); both were controversial solutions to an enduring human ailment. Post-operation survival periods averaged 15 years.