Word: kantrowitz
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...made the transplant possible was despondent. Said Edward Darvall: "There was at least part of my daughter alive, and now it's all gone. I feel empty." (In fact, one of her kidneys, transplanted to Jonathan Van Wyk, 10, was still working well.) Brooklyn's Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, whose own heart-transplant operation had failed two weeks earlier, expressed his sorrow, then added: "However, I believe that the operation performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard represents a great step forward...
...heart. The doctors had already begun cooling the recipient baby in a water bath to 59 °F. After 40 minutes, they were ready to cut. One group excised the dead baby's heart while another excised the recipient's. In a mere 30 minutes Dr. Kantrowitz was able to join the aorta, the great veins and pulmonary arteries. From skin to skin, the operation took 2¼ hours...
...oxygenated blood. Other criteria for the patient's recovery all seemed favorable. But after 6½ hours, the heart suddenly stopped. There had been no time for the rejection mechanism to intrude-that takes days or weeks, and is, besides, less likely to be severe in infants. Dr. Kantrowitz, drawn and shaken, conceded that he and his colleagues had no idea why they had failed in their attempt "to make one whole individual out of two individuals who did not have a chance of survival." The autopsy indicated no surgical error; microscopic findings, which may disclose the actual cause...
...Barnard was talking of sending Washkansky home in a couple of weeks. In this he could have been overoptimistic. The possibility remained that he might be as cruelly disappointed as Dr. Kantrowitz by the sudden failure of the transplant. At best, there could be endless complications. Yet the mere performance of the operation set a milestone along the endless road of man's struggle against disability...
...Shumway also introduced a refinement of technique in heart transplants used by both Dr. Barnard and Dr. Kantrowitz last week. In animal surgery, it had been customary to remove the entire heart. This meant severing and later rejoining not only the two great arteries, but also two great veins returning spent blood to the heart and four veins returning oxygenated blood from the lungs. By leaving in place parts of the walls of the upper heart chambers (auricles or atria) to which these six veins return, Dr. Shumway eliminated an enormous amount of delicate suturing in sensitive areas...