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By University Communications
February 14, 2008

Michael Boudreaux celebrated this Valentine’s Day with a very special kind of heart – a healthy, beating one that replaced his own diseased heart, giving him a second chance at life.

The new heart is a milestone that few hospitals in the nation have reached – Boudreaux is University Medical Center’s Cardiothoracic Transplant Program’s 1,000th transplant patient.

The program has become one of the most successful heart and lung programs in the world since it was started in 1979 by cardiothoracic surgeon Jack G. Copeland, professor and chief of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, and co-director of The University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center. The 1,000 cardiothoracic transplants include 821 heart transplants, 73 double-lung transplants, 51 single-lung transplants and 55 heart-lung transplants.

Boudreaux, a 51-year-old maintenance worker, received his new heart Feb. 5 after a five-hour surgery led by Pei H. Tsau, assistant professor of surgery at the UA department of surgery and a member of the Sarver Heart Center.

Boudreaux was on the transplant list for eight months. He suffered from congestive heart failure, a genetic condition he inherited from his family. His father and brother both died from massive heart attacks. His sister also had a heart attack but survived.

After his first heart attack, doctors implanted an internal cardiac defibrillator. "It went off eight times," Boudreaux said, meaning his heart stopped, which caused the defibrillator to go off and shock the heart back into a regular rhythm.

Doctors concerned about his survival opted for bypass surgery, but there was too much damage to the heart muscle. Boudreaux suffered four more heart attacks after that.

"I was told many times that I had months, weeks, days to live," Boudreaux said. "My heart was just about to give out. It was so enlarged that there was no more room left in my chest for it to pump. The hardest part was when I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep because I would think about whether this was going to be my last day," he said.

Heart and lung transplant surgeries are among the most complex and lengthy surgical procedures. They offer the hope of new life to people with severe cardiac and/or respiratory diseases. The UA and UMC have joined the ranks of a select few heart centers in the world that have performed 1,000 cardiothoracic transplants.