How difficult is it to get a heart for a heart transplant?

How difficult is it to get a heart for a heart transplant?

Rose Marie Robertson, MD, FAHA, FACC, FESC (Chief Science Officer and Past President of the Board of American Heart Association) gives expert video advice on: When is a heart transplant necessary?; Is angioplasty overused to treat coronary heart disease?; Are there alternative methods for treating heart disease? and more...

Every year, just over 2 heart transplants are done in this country. In fact, thousands of people die while waiting for a heart transplant. The unfortunate thing is that they bury perfectly useful hearts. It's very important for people to know that their heart can be used to save a life when it's of no use to them anymore. So, when people are in auto accidents, when they die tragic deaths, but the heart is left intact, it's a tremendous benefit to someone else that is sitting in a hospital and waiting for a transplant who will otherwise die without it. To have that heart is the really supreme gift of life. People who are on transplant lists are there because they have devastating heart disease. They are, in fact, prioritized on those lists by how severe their heart disease is. The people at the top of the list are people who actually can't survive out of the hospital, who have to be in the hospital getting medications actively or they wouldn't be at the top of the list. So, the distribution of organs is really very fair, very appropriate and signing that organ donor line on the back of your driver's license is a tremendously important thing to do.