Credit: Northwestern Medicine
Benjamin S. Bryner, MD, associate director of heart transplantation and mechanical support and director of the expanded donation program (bottom), and Duc Thinh Pham, MD, director of heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support (top), are shown performing a transplant using a heart donated after circulatory death (DCD). The surgery was the first DCD heart transplant in Illinois, performed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, October 12. Estimates suggest that this updated approach could increase the number of available donor hearts for transplant by up to 30 percent in the United States.