Heart-liver transplantIn 1984, six-year-old Stormie Jones from Texas became the world's first heart-liver double transplant recipient. She had a heart attack at age 6. She had inherited a receptor deficiency from both parents. Having virtually no way to rid her body of cholesterol, she had blood levels of cholesterol almost five times the safe level. The operation transplanted a heart to replace her damaged one, and a liver which possessed the normal number of cholesterol receptors. Drs. Thomas E. Starzl and Henry T. Bahnson performed the operation at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Followed by drug treatment, her cholesterol level dropped to the normal range. She lived until age 13. On 11 Nov 1990, she died of a possible heart infection. |
