Pregledni rad
Thirty-Five Years of Heart Transplantation in Croatia
Davor Miličić
Sažetak
At the end of 2023, the University Hospital Centre Zagreb celebrated 35 years since the first heart transplant in Croatia, under the leadership of late Professor Josip Sokolić. It was a historical success in Croatian medicine, in particular due to the fact that the heart transplant performed in Zagreb was the first of its kind in South-Eastern Europe. From that time in 1988, a continuous and comprehensive Heart Transplantation Program has been established. The program also successfully started and continued at the University Hospital Dubrava, from 1995 onward. Besides adult heart transplantations, the University Hospital Centre Zagreb also runs a successful Pediatric Heart Transplant Program. In 2008, the University Hospital Centre Zagreb established the Mechanical Circulatory Support Program, which also runs at University Hospital Dubrava. A comprehensive mechanical circulatory support is nowadays a prerequisite for a successful Advanced Heart Failure Centre, which should include a variety of mechanical support, starting from Extracorporeal Life Support system (ECLS, ECMO), short term left or right circulatory pumps, to implantable, durable ventricular support/ assistant devices (VADs), dominantly for the left ventricular support (LVAD). From 2007, Croatia has become a full member of Eurotransplant, which enhanced further development of heart transplant cardiology and surgery and helped Croatia become the leading European country in terms of number of heart transplants per million people. Heart transplantation still represents a golden standard of treating people with advanced heart failure, who do not have contraindications for being transplanted. Thus, in some categories of patients, mechanical circulatory support can be used instead, either as a temporary solution, i.e. Bridge to Transplant therapy, or as destination treatment for patients with permanent contraindications for transplantation, but available for durable mechanical myocardial support. Conclusively, use of heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support represents one of the internationally recognized feats of Croatian medicine, resulting from the dedicated interdisciplinary teamwork of medical doctors and other healthcare providers, but also from continuous support from the Ministry of Health and National Health Funding, and the entire community.
Ključne riječi
advanced heart failure; heart transplantation; 35 years of heart transplantation in Croatia; mechanical circulatory support
Hrčak ID:
315868
URI
Datum izdavanja:
9.4.2024.
Posjeta: 128 *