Individual approach on heart transplant gives older patients second chances

WAYNE, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Heart transplants offer a second chance at life. But most hospitals reject patients once they turn 70.

However, an Iowa man found his second chance in Philadelphia at age 74.

"I was riding my bike 15, 20 miles a day, going down to Mexico snorkeling," Tom Fennell recalls of his life two years ago.

Tom never slowed down after retiring from corporate sales, until he felt sick and went to the ER.

"About an hour later, they said - 'Tom, you've had a massive heart attack,'" he was told.

After a second massive attack, Fennell got an LVAD heart pump. It's a battery and electrically-powered device that kept his heart going.

"But it really didn't give me the life that I wanted to live," says Fennell. "I couldn't snorkel, I couldn't scuba dive, I couldn't ride my bike."

But five hospitals nationwide said that at 74, Fennell was too old for a transplant.

"Temple was the only one that did not turn me down," he says. "I've been taught never to give up. And I wasn't going to let this thing stop me."

"We are a center that believes in second chances," notes Tamie Boucher, P.A., Temple Health heart transplant manager.

"We take each patient, and we don't use a cookie-cutter approach," adds Dr. Eman Hamad, director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplant program.

Dr. Hamad and Boucher say Temple Health looks at a patient's condition, other ailments, and risk factors.

"You can have somebody who's in their 50s, and has so many comorbidities that they're too high risk for transplant," notes Dr. Hamad.

She says healthy older patients do well with transplants, with less organ rejection, because their immune systems are not as reactive.

And instead of a strict weight cutoff, Temple partners with patients to achieve an acceptable weight.

"As long as they are willing to put in the work, we're willing to put in the work," says Boucher.

Temple's transplant program offers a full range of support to patients and their families, to increase success.

"I always tell the patients, once they've reached me, we're now family," says Boucher.

Temple's approach is giving more older people the chance to get back to their lives.

"Nationally, there's about maybe 4% of patients who are 70 and above. And when we look at our data, we have about 16 or 17%," notes Dr. Hamad.

And they do as well as many younger patients.

Fennell qualified for a transplant, and 11 days after arriving in Philadelphia, he got what he calls his "perfect" heart.

Since then, he's been working on his strength and stamina to get back to the people and places he loves.

"We're planning on going up to our lake house for a family vacation," Fennell says, noting that, other than his wife, he hasn't seen his family in over a year.

"Right at the first of January, I'm going down to Mexico," he says with a wide smile.

Dr. Hamad says heart failure patients should seek advanced care earlier, and ask whether the program they're in has options such as heart pumps and transplants.