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Heart Transplant
A heart transplant is a procedure in which a surgeon removes a diseased heart and replaces it with a donor heart. During a heart transplant, a mechanical pump circulates blood through the body while the surgeon removes the diseased heart and replaces it with a healthy heart from a recently deceased donor.
The surgeon connects the donor heart to the major blood vessels and hooks the heart up to wires that temporarily control the heartbeat. The procedure takes several hours.
To prevent the body from rejecting the donor heart, your surgeon will give you powerful drugs (immunosuppressants) immediately after surgery, and you must continue to take them.
| By: | Healthwise Staff | Last Revised: August 9, 2010 |
| Medical Review: | E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD - Cardiology | |
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