When Was the First Heart Transplant?

On 3 December 1967, surgeon Christiaan Barnard and a team of 30 at Groote Schuur Hospital transplanted the heart of a 25-year-old car-accident victim, Denise Darvall, into 54-year-old Louis Washkansky, who had end-stage heart failure. The operation lasted nine hours and was a technical success. Washkansky survived 18 days before dying of pneumonia, as the immunosuppressive drugs weakened his immune system. Barnard second transplant patient, Philip Blaiberg, lived 19 months. Today, roughly 6,000 heart transplants are performed worldwide each year, with five-year survival rates exceeding 75%.