Vladimir Demikhov

Vladimir Petrovich Demichow (Russian: Владимир Петрович Демихов; born July 18, 1916 in Kulini / Volgograd Oblast, † November 22, 1998 in Moscow) was a Russian surgeon and pioneer of transplantation surgery. Demichow was known primarily for his experiments on dogs.

His work

Between 1930 and 1950 experimented Demichow with artificial heart and bypass operations, but also transplanted the heart and lungs. Demichow led among others by the first heart transplant in a warm, the first lung transplant and the first heart - lung transplant in the history of surgery. He was known to the public but mainly by operations in which he transplanted heads and front body. His attempts were referred to in the Soviet Union as the " Sputnik surgery ".

Demichows thesis "Experimental transplantation of vital organs ," which appeared in 1960 and was published in 1962 outside the Soviet Union, was for a long time the only monograph on the transplantation of organs and tissues. Christiaan Barnard, who should 1967 perform the first successful heart transplant in humans, visited Demichows laboratory in 1960 and 1963 and looked at Demichow as his teacher.

During his attempts Demichow mistakenly reckoned that the failure of donor organs would not caused by an immune reaction, but by lack of surgical techniques. Based on this hypothesis, he developed 24 different surgical techniques for heart transplantation to about 250 animals. A dog came up with a postoperative survival time of 32 days.

Demichow died in 1998 unheeded, but received shortly before his death the Order " For Services to the Fatherland ".

Publications

• Demikhov, V.P. Experimental transplantation of vital organs. Authorized translation from the Russian by Basil Haigh / New York:. Consultant 's Bureau, 1962