Health & biology · 1967

Heart transplant

Christiaan Barnard replaced Louis Washkansky's failing heart with a donor heart in Cape Town.

The December 1967 operation showed the heart itself could be replaced. Survival was poor until immunosuppression improved; today median survival exceeds 12 years.

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Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Organ transplant 1954

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Life expectancy in the UK since 1543 Latest: 81.3 years (2023) Source: Our World in Data