A Georgia medical malpractice jury awarded $38.6 million against Emory University Hospital in Georgia for the death of the plaintiff’s 20-year-old son who suffered what turned out to be a fatal complication during heart transplant surgery in 2017: “Trevon lost two-thirds of the blood that was in his body, quickly. He left the operating room on life support, and he remained on life support for six weeks until he passed away on Christmas Day.”
In 2016, the patient’s doctors discovered that he had been living with a dormant virus that had attacked his heart to the point where he needed a heart transplant. According to the Georgia medical malpractice lawsuit, the standard of care required that a chest CT scan be performed prior to the transplant surgery to investigate any scar tissue or particles from the heart pump he used due to congestive heart failure. According to the plaintiff’s expert, if a CT scan had been performed, it would have found that a critical structure in his chest was stuck to the back of his chest. Medical experts stated that had the issue been discovered before surgery, the patient would not have died.
The defense argued that the standard of care did not require a pre-operative chest CT-scan. Emory Healthcare issued the following statement after the verdict: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time. We will continue our mission of providing high-quality, compassionate care to all patients who come to our facilities. We appreciate the dedication and commitment of our many care teams across our health system.”
The Mayo Clinic reports that survival rates after heart transplantation vary based on a number of factors, and that survival rates continue to improve despite an increase in older and higher risk heart transplant recipients. The overall survival rate is about 90% after one year and about 80% after five years for adults, worldwide.
A medical article from June 2023 reported that heart transplantation (HTx) has become the preferred therapy for select patients, with a 1-year survival of almost 90% and a conditional half-life (the time at which 50% of patients who survived the first year are still alive) of 13 years.
Recently published data from heart transplants performed between 1990 and 2007 show that about half are alive after 10 years. However, better treatments for preventing graft failure and rejection are improving the outlook for people who receive heart transplants.
If you or a loved one suffered serious harm as a result of heart surgery malpractice in Georgia or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Georgia medical malpractice attorney, or a medical malpractice attorney in your state, who may investigate your heart surgery malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a heart surgery medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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