Saving Two Lives with One Heart

Duke Health is one of the nation’s leading transplant centers; we perform over 400 life-saving congenital heart surgeries annually, with shorter wait times and better survival rates for heart transplants than the national average. In recent years, Duke’s heart surgeons have pioneered a series of breakthrough heart transplant procedures, giving new life and new hope to children and adults who would otherwise have had no options.

Duke’s pediatric cardiac transplant team, led by Joseph Turek, MD PhD, MBA, recently pulled off something of a miracle: using one donor heart to save two infants who needed transplants. The procedure built on an earlier breakthrough: the world’s first partial heart transplant, in which Turek and his team transplanted donated heart valves that would grow along the recipient, avoiding the usual need for multiple follow-up surgeries.

For the domino transplant, Turek transplanted a donor heart into an infant with congenital heart disease. The valves from the damaged heart were healthy, however. Rather than discard them with the rest of the replaced heart, Turek transplanted the valves into another infant who needed them.

The two procedures are among the most important advances in congenital heart surgery in decades. Thanks to Duke Health, more children with heart disease will have the opportunity to grow up and live full and happy lives.