New York, NY - Dr Adrian Kantrowitz, the surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant in the US, the second worldwide, died late last week at age 90 from complications from heart failure.

In more than 60 years of surgical practice, Kantrowitz is credited with designing and using more than 20 medical devices that aided circulation and vital functions, including the intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP), the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), and an early version of the implantable defibrillator.

However, Kantrowitz will forever be remembered as the first surgeon in the US to perform a heart transplant. On December 6, 1967, he implanted a heart into a baby with a fatal heart defect, doing so just three days after South African surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first cardiac transplant.

In an obituary appearing in the New York Times [1], the newspaper notes that Kantrowitz had practiced hundreds of heart transplants in animals over the previous four years and had been on track to be the first to surgically implant a human heart. The previous year he had been prevented at the last minute because the donor infant had not been declared brain dead.

In addition to replacing hearts, the Times points out that he "concentrated on finding ways to supplement the work of the natural heart with an impressive array of circulatory devices of his own invention." Of these, the most noteworthy invention was the LVAD, which he implanted for the first time in 1972. The IABP, invented in 1967, has been used in roughly three million patients since the 1980s when it went into general use.

Born in New York City on October 4, 1918, Kantrowitz graduated from New York University with a degree in mathematics. He attended the Long Island College of Medicine, which is now part of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and interned at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. His medical education was fast-tracked, however, as part of an accelerated program to supply doctors for World War II. He joined the Army Medical Corps as a battalion surgeon, where he served for two years.

In 1948, Kantrowitz practiced surgery at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx and later moved to the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where he held a surgical post. In 1970, Kantrowitz moved his entire team to Detroit, teaching at Wayne State University School of Medicine and practicing at Sinai Hospital.

Kantrowitz is survived by his wife, Jean, and his three children, Niki, Lisa, and Allen, all of whom are doctors.