Dorothy Fischer
Born1931
Died19 October 1981
NationalitySouth African
Known forEarly heart transplant survivor

Dorothy Fischer (1931 – 19 October 1981) was a South African woman who was for many years the world's longest surviving heart transplant recipient.

Fischer's heart had been damaged by rheumatic fever as a child and by 1969, when she was 38 years old, her doctors agreed that she was dying.[1] Dr Christiaan Barnard and his team carried out Fischer's heart transplant—their fifth—on 17 April 1969.[1][2][3] She survived for twelve and a half years after the operation and was held up by Barnard as proof that heart transplants were a viable long-term option in spite of the body's rejection of foreign tissue.[2]

Fischer died from complications associated with chronic rejection on 19 October 1981,[2] two years before the immunosuppressive drug Ciclosporin became generally available to transplant patients.

See also

Bibliography

  • Wallis, F. (2000). News Diary: facts and freaks over 1,000 years, Cape Town: Human & Rousseau.

References

  1. 1 2 RR7819B HEART TRANSPLANTS THE LONGEST SURVIVOR (Television production). AP Television. 8 May 1978. w010124. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "Obituary for Dorothy Fischer (1981)". remembered.co.za. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
  3. ↑ "Dorothy Fischer becomes the first South African woman to undergo a heart transplant". sahistory.org. South African History Online. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
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