Mayo Clinic in Arizona Granted Interim Approval to Begin Heart Transplantation

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. - Patients needing a heart transplant can now turn to Mayo Clinic in Arizona for evaluation. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has granted Mayo interim approval to begin the program, meaning that the first heart transplant is likely to occur before this fall or before the end of the year.

Mayo's heart transplant program is now designated to receive organs under the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and was approved by UNOS as a member program as of Sept. 20, 2005. Recommendation for full approval will be made to the OPTN/UNOS Board of Directors at its November meeting.

The Mayo program is the only heart transplant program located in the greater Phoenix area. It was announced in September 2004 that Mayo would expand its existing cardiovascular and transplantation services to include heart transplants and other advanced technologies for heart failure and heart disease.

The Heart Transplant Program builds on the success of the solid organ transplant services already in place at Mayo - kidney, liver and pancreas transplantation. Two cardiac specialists new to Mayo joined the team in June and July of this year. Francisco Arabia, M.D., previously physician leader of the Heart Program at University Medical Center (UMC) in Tucson, Ariz., and surgical director of the Lung Transplant Center, joined Mayo Clinic in June. He now is Mayo's surgical director of the Heart Transplant Program.

In July, Robert L. Scott, M.D., Ph.D., joined Mayo as medical director for Congestive Heart Failure and Heart Transplantation. Previously he was medical director for Heart Transplantation and director of Heart Failure Services at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

Completing the medical component of the heart transplant team is Eric Steidley, M.D., Mayo Clinic cardiologist who specializes in advanced congestive heart failure, cardiac transplant and cardiomyopathy.

Mayo Clinic, at its sites in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota, performs the largest number of transplants in the U.S.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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