An amazing race (book excerpt: Every Second Counts)

During the 1960s, four surgeons competed to become the first to complete a human heart transplant. South African-born author Donald McRae details the race.

By Donald McRae, amednews contributor. Dec. 11, 2006.

Book Excerpt
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This excerpt shows the intense pressure the physicians faced in the rush to be No. 1.

The operation itself would be relatively uncomplicated, a replica of his hundreds of dog-heart transplants. Kantrowitz knew the primary battle would be the fight against rejection. How the human body would react to a transplanted heart remained uncertain. Yet he was convinced he had been cannier than Shumway and Lower in choosing an infant transplant. His research on puppies echoed earlier scientific findings that an undeveloped immune system was more likely to accept a transplanted organ. Even without any immunosuppressive drugs, one of his frisky dogs was still alive 119 days after receiving a new heart.

Looking down at Jamie Scudero, Kantrowitz forgot about Shumway and Lower. He confronted forces more powerful than any of them. A combination of deadly cardiac flaws -- pulmonary atresia with patent ductus arteriosus as well as atrial and ventricular septal defects -- lurked deep inside the baby.

Kantrowitz had been at this exact point 18 months earlier, when he had tried to save the small Gypsy boy by using the heart of an anencephalic baby born to Richard and Rhoda Senz. The raw drama of that night still haunted him, but he was determined to try again. A few weeks before he had attempted that transplant, in June 1966, Kantrowitz had made the front page of The New York Times with the news that, during a groundbreaking six-hour operation, he had implanted the world's first permanent left ventricular assist device, described wrongly by some journalists as "an artificial heart," into the chest of a terminally ill 63-year-old woman, Louise Ceraso.

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