site.bta40th Anniversary of Bulgaria's and Balkans' First Heart Transplant

Forty years ago on Thursday, Bulgaria's and the Balkans' first heart transplant was performed in Sofia on May 14, 1986.

The Head of the Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic with the National Centre for Cardiovascular Diseases, Prof. Alexander Tschirkov, and his team carried out the first heart transplantation in Bulgaria and in the Balkans. The recipient was 11-year-old Ivan Sarafski of Kardzhali (South Central Bulgaria), who had severe heart failure due to congenital cardiomyopathy. The donor was a 14-year-old brain-dead victim of a car crash.

The boy lived a normal life for two years until an accidental fall from a bicycle he rode caused a fatal arrhythmia. 

Following is an English translation of a news item by which BTA's Home News Desk Bulletin covered the patient's condition a month after the ground-breaking surgery:

"Sofia, June 12 (BTA). Ivan Sarafski: a month ago we had not even heard of him, and now there is no Bulgarian who is unfamiliar with him. We learned that, at just eleven years old, this boy's life was already fading away. The child, whose fate filled us with anxiety and hope for days on end, today took his step towards life… leaving the Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic."