Career
On February 14, 1984, Doctorates Thomas East. Starzl and Henry T. Bahnson replaced the six-year-old"s heart and liver at the Children"s Hospital of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Stormie had a condition which raised her blood cholesterol to 10 times normal levels.
The condition, a severe form of familial hypercholesterolemia, and the resultant high levels of low density lipoprotein that damaged her organs, gave her two heart attacks when she was six years old.
Stormie died on November 11, 1990. Her death was related to rejection of the heart transplant she had received in 1984.
There were very specific reasons for performing a combined heart and liver transplant in this young girl. Due to her inherited condition, Stormie"s liver was unable to remove cholesterol, id est (that is)
LDL-cholesterol, from her bloodstream.
As a result, her LDL-cholesterol levels became very high and caused her two heart attacks by age six. On the other hand, the transplanted liver, being normal and healthy, was able to clear the LDL-cholesterol from her blood. Indeed, after the transplant, Stormie"s LDL-cholesterol declined by 81%—from an astounding 988 to a near-normal 184 mg per deciliter.
Since she was going to require lifelong immunosuppressant therapy anyway to prevent rejection of her transplanted liver, and since her heart had been severely damaged by her previous heart attacks, it was decided to also perform a heart transplant.
