heart surgery

(Newser) - Michael DeBakey, the pioneering heart doctor considered to be the father of modern cardiovascular surgery,  died last night at 99 in Houston, the Houston Chronicle reports.  During his long career, DeBakey operated on some 60,000 patients, including figures like Russian president Boris Yeltsin, trained thousands of surgeons,...

(Newser) - A Georgia man who took his own life last week had lived 12 years after receiving a transplanted heart from a South Carolina man who also committed suicide, police said. And in a twist worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, the donor's widow had met and married the recipient, the Hilton...

(Newser) - Donated blood may have a much shorter shelf life than previously thought, finds a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Transfusions using blood at least two weeks old increased heart-surgery patients' post-operative death risk by 30%, researchers discovered, though the current expiration date for blood is...

(Newser) - A prominent researcher who revealed widespread fatalities associated with the heart surgery drug Trasylol says 22,000 people died because of the FDA's delay in blowing the whistle on the drug after his study was published. Drugmaker Bayer also failed to disclose negative results of its own study. In a...