Dr. Christiaan Barnard, Who Performed 1st Heart Transplant, Dead at 78

The pioneering South African heart surgeon, who recently published a book "50 Ways to a Healthy Heart," suffered a fatal asthma attack following a morning swim at a hotel in the western Cypriot resort of Paphos, according to the Christiaan Barnard Foundation.

In December 1967, Barnard made medical history by performing the world's first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived for 18 days before dying. Cause of Washkansky's death was pneumonia as a result of the use of drugs and radiation to prevent organ rejection.

After Washkansky died, Barnard and his team tried again. Philip Blaiberg, their second heart transplant patient, lived 18 months after the operation. Barnard also performed the world's first heart-lung transplant a few years later. Four of Barnard's first 10 heart transplant patients lived for more than a year, and two survived longer than 10 years.

More than 50,000 heart transplants have been performed since those early procedures, with more than 2,000 performed last year in the United States alone.

Since the advent of more effective immunosuppressive medications, survival rates also have improved dramatically. More than 90 percent of heart transplant patients in the United States now survive the operation, with the new hearts of three out of four patients still going strong after three years.

Barnard's longest surviving patient, Dirk van Zyl, one of those first 10, lived with an implanted heart for 23 years before dying of diabetes unrelated to his heart condition. Barnard personally performed 75 heart transplants and his team did more than 150.

While his name will always be linked to heart transplantation, Barnard frequently said the real highlight of his career was operating on children born with abnormal hearts.

"What do you think is the most important disease affecting the heart today?" he would ask in recent years. "It is rheumatic heart disease, which affects millions of young children."

Rheumatoid arthritis forced Barnard to give up surgery in 1983, and he spent the subsequent years touring the world giving lectures, dividing his time between Europe and his farm in South Africa's Cape Province.

The flamboyant Barnard was the author of several books, including a scandal-filled biography and "50 Ways to a Healthy Heart," in which he put sexual activity top of his list.