On Feb 14, 1984, the world’s first successful combined heart-liver transplant was performed in Pittsburgh at UPMC Children’s Hospital by pioneering transplant surgeon and researcher Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, and colleagues.  Starzl and colleagues performed the world’s first heart-liver transplant on 6-year-old Stormie Jones from Texas.  She lived until November 1990.

That first case led to numerous other medical discoveries and laid the foundation for hundreds more procedures to be performed with increasing efficacy and long-term quality of life. However, combined-heart liver transplants remain a rare phenomenon. Since 2010, only a little more than 400 have been performed in the United States, the vast majority of which have occurred in patients older than 18.