2nd Soviet Heart Transplant Performed
The second Soviet citizen to receive a new heart in an officially sanctioned transplant operation is convalescing in a country rest home two months after undergoing surgery, Tass news agency reported Friday.
Alexandra Shalkova, 27, was able to take short walks in the woods around the sanitarium in Peredelkino, a writers’ village outside Moscow, said her surgeon, Valery Shumakov.
She received the heart of a 26-year-old man who died in a traffic accident on March 12.
Shumakov of the Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences carried out the Soviet Union’s first officially approved heart transplant on a 33-year-old man last October, but he died three days after receiving the new organ.
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