Tuesday marked what would have been the 100th birthday of the late cardiovascular trailblazer, Professor Christiaan Barnard, who performed the first human-to-human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in 1967 – and who also completed the country’s first kidney transplant in October the same year.
South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) CEO and president Professor Glenda Gray said the milestone provided a time for the country to reflect on whether or not it had made strides in reducing cardiovascular disease and its subsequent deaths.
“His contribution reminds us that cardiovascular disease is still a big problem in South Africa and that we must continue to find solutions to non-communicable diseases,” she said.
While famous for pioneering heart transplant surgery, Barnard also made several other key contributions to medicine, reports News24. He introduced open-heart surgery and intensive care nursing for patients after major surgery, and developed the UCT heart valves used for replacing damaged heart valves.
He also developed new surgical techniques for correcting congenital and other heart defects.
He completed South Africa's first successful kidney transplant in October 1967, and a few months later, on 3 December, made world history by performing the first human heart transplant.
He was nominated for the 1968 Nobel Prize for medicine, but did not win the award. He performed 53 transplants before retiring in 1983.
Barnard died on 2 September 2001, from a severe asthma attack while on holiday in Cyprus. He was 78.
Cindi Lategan, manager of the Heart of Cape Town Museum at Groote Schuur Hospital, said: “It is important for to keep alive the legacy a man who played a major role in the surgical feat that pushed the boundaries of science into the dawn of a new medical era.
“The first successful human-to-human heart transplant performed… is one of the greatest moments in medical history and was made possible by his extraordinary interplay of scientific dedication and human courage.”
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Professor Tim Pennel, UCT’s Christiaan Barnard chair of cardiothoracic surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, said Barnard’s contribution to the field of cardiothoracic surgery and medicine in general extended far beyond his historic achievement.
“As a young doctor, Barnard completed his MD dissertation on the effect of steroids as an adjunct to the treatment of tuberculous meningitis, which remains the contemporary management for this disease. Not long after, he was the first to describe intestinal atresia (complete obstruction of the intestines) as a lack of in-utero blood flow to the small bowel. This discovery led to his PhD and his introduction to heart surgery and the technique for heart transplantation.”
Pennel added that Barnard worked to keep improving transplant surgery and invented the heterotopic heart transplant, which is also known as a piggyback transplant, to overcome the difficulties with immunosuppression and rejection. He also devised the definition of brain death.
“Barnard's celebrity status was fashioned around an event that was only surpassed by the Apollo 11 moon landing two years later. It is important to reflect on an achievement of a South African who came from humble means to the most publicised event in medical history.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Operational mitral valve implanted by Chris Barnard in 1969 found in Italian woman
How a historic heart transplant created SA’s first celebrity scientist 50 years ago
Film to be made of first heart transplant 50 years on
SA’s scarcity of transplant donors