LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Norton Children's celebrated the hospitals 100th pediatric heart transplant on Monday.
The hospital in Louisville performed the first transplant in 1986. According to a news release, the most recent patient, a 9-year-old, is recovering after waiting almost a year on the transplant list.
"It’s exciting to reach this milestone," Dr. Bahaaldin Alsoufi, chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery and co-director of Norton Children’s Heart Institute, affiliated with the UofL School of Medicine, said in a news release. "We are the only pediatric program in the state capable of doing heart transplants. And we are doing that with outcomes that match those of the best programs in the United States."
Norton Children's Hospital became the second hospital in the U.S. to perform a heart transplant in an infant in 1986. It has grown into a full-service program with cardiovascular and transplant surgeons, cardiologists, fetal heart specialists and other caregivers.
The Jennifer Lawrence Cardiac Intensive Care Unit opened in 2020. It features a 17-bed unit with privates rooms for children recovering from heart procedures and other conditions.
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