DR. ADRIAN KANTROWITZ, 90
Heart transplant pioneer
Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the nation's first human heart transplant and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, died Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich., of complications from heart failure.
In 1967, Dr. Kantrowitz performed the first human heart transplant in the United States, three days after the world's first was performed in South Africa.
But the transplant, on an infant who died several hours later, was only a small part of his life's work to solve the problem of heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz.
