Former Vice-President and longtime beltway powerbroker, Richard B. Cheney, received a heart transplant after waiting more than a year-and-a-half to get to the top of the list. He had his first heart attack in the 1970s. He is 71-years-old, many years beyond the age when most are considered eligible for the procedure, though that age is on the rise.
More than 2,000 human heart transplants will likely be performed this year in the US. Far more than half those recipients will be living five years from now. Human-to-human heart transplant was first accomplished 45 years ago in South Africa. That patient lived a few more weeks.