Donor Teen’s heart Spurs Padova’s Early Cardiac Transplantation Breakthroughs
WORLD NEWS – ITALY: A decades‑long chapter in Italian cardiac surgery is recounted around a single heart transplant that tied Treviso, Padova and a team of pioneering surgeons together. The story centers on Francesco Busnello, a young man from Treviso whose donated heart set in motion a delicate transfer and an operation that left a lasting impression on the medical team. Giovanni Stellin evokes the gratitude owed to Busnello’s parents while recalling the somber journey from Padova to Treviso and the calm leadership of his mentor, Professor Vincenzo Gallucci.
The surgical episode is portrayed as intense but manageable from a technical viewpoint, with Gallucci described as an exceptional operator and the hospital facilities as excellent. Members of the team remember a singular, emotional moment when the transplanted heart resumed beating after being transported across cities — a visceral confirmation that the organ had survived the transfer and the procedure. That success reinforced Padova’s emergence as a center of excellence in cardiac surgery.
The Padova program continued to advance in the years that followed. In 1987 the unit performed a transplant on a 12‑year‑old who survives and is doing well, and in 1988 Gallucci, assisted by Stellin, carried out the center’s first transplant on a newborn. The service later became formally associated with Gallucci’s name and was led by Gino Gerosa, maintaining a trajectory of pediatric and adult cardiac transplantation and surgical training.
Looking ahead, clinicians in the account outlined two possible futures for treating end‑stage heart disease. One possibility is a commercially available total artificial heart that is small, highly biocompatible and offers excellent quality of life; the other is regenerative medicine using a decellularized pig heart repopulated with the recipient’s stem cells. Both options were described as potential solutions within a 10–20 year horizon, keeping the transplant narrative tied to ongoing innovation.
