Heart transplant

Nearly 4,000 people in the U.S. receive a new heart each year. Beginning the transplant process can be a hopeful time, but it can also be stressful.

At Penn Medicine, you can rest assured you’re in good hands. Our team performs an average of one heart transplant each week, making us one of the nation’s most experienced transplant providers.

Our cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, cardiac anesthesiologists, intensive care specialists, and transplant infectious disease specialists work together—and with you—to ensure you get all the care you need before, during, and after a heart transplant.

We also understand that having your loved ones by your side is a critical part of care. Our unique family-centered model prioritizes keeping your caregivers with you at your bedside and in decision-making care team meetings.

Penn Medicine’s heart transplant specialty is one of the nation’s most established programs dedicated to life-saving heart transplantations. We performed our first transplant in 1987 and since then have gone on to provide this lifesaving care to more than 1,500 people. We have the skill and experience to help even high-risk patients when other centers say surgery isn’t an option.

As a transplant recipient, you and your family become part of the Penn Medicine family. We’re here with care and support for the rest of your life. Your family is at the center of our care model, as we encourage your loved ones to stay by your side and participate in your care.

Our heart transplant team members are also physician-researchers dedicated to developing better, safer heart transplant procedures and technologies. Clinical trials can provide more treatment options for people with advanced heart failure, often years before those options are widely available.

Current areas of heart transplant research include:

Easier detection and prevention of heart transplant rejection

A body’s rejection of a transplanted heart can be devastating. Identifying rejection early can help reverse the process. We currently identify rejection with a heart biopsy, which carries a risk of complications, such as blood clots, arrhythmia, or infection at the biopsy site.

Penn Medicine is researching the use of blood tests to detect heart transplant rejection without the risks of biopsy. Members of our team are also investigating new types of medications given just after transplant to reduce the risk of rejection.

Expanding the pool of available hearts

We led one of the first academic studies that paved the way for the use of heart transplants from donors who were positive for hepatitis C. Previously, we could not accept these organs. Researchers from Penn Medicine became the first to publish a clinical protocol for transplanting a heart from a hepatitis C-positive donor. As a result, there are up to 2,000 more hearts available across the U.S.

Developing systems for transporting donor hearts longer distances

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) coordinates organ matching in the U.S. When a donor heart becomes available, we work to transplant the heart as quickly as possible. Penn Medicine is working with studies of organ perfusion systems that circulate fluid and nutrients to donor hearts in transit to keep them healthy longer and expand the pool of donor hearts.