Intermountain Press Release

Salt Lake City—One of the country's most successful cooperative heart transplant programs marked its 20th anniversary on Friday.

Transplant patients and medical staff from LDS Hospital, Primary Children's Medical Center, the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, and the VA Medical Center, the four transplant centers that comprise the UTAH Cardiac Transplant Program, gathered today to celebrate two decades of live-saving service to patients throughout the Intermountain West.

The UTAH Cardiac Transplant Program utilizes the skill, expertise, and resources of medical teams from the four hospitals, which helps to contain costs by eliminating replication. The UTAH Cardiac Transplant Program has one of the best survival rates in the country and has been cited as a model for other transplant programs for its efficiency and clinical outcomes.

During the past 20 years, the UTAH Cardiac Tranplant Program has transplanted 887 heart patients. Half of the patients tranplanted by surgeons in the program in their first year are still alive.

"The UTAH Cardiac Transplant program is one of the most successful programs in the country because of the cooperative nature that exists between the teams at LDS Hospital, Primary Children's, the University of Utah, and the VA Medical Center," says Dale Renlund, M.D., director of the UTAH Cardiac Tranplant Program and head of the heart failure program at LDS Hospital. "Cooperation has allowed use to function more effectively, to allocate donor hearts more effectively, and to select the most appropriate recipients."