From baby to man with a piggyback heart: long-term success of heterotopic heart transplantation.

We present a case of a young man, who underwent heterotopic heart transplantation 20 years ago, when he was 6 months old. The baby suffered from severe intractable cardiomyopathy. In this desperate situation only a miniature, compromised donor heart became available. Today, the young man is fully active under minimal immunosuppression. His surgical course is reviewed and described.