• Home
  • Archives

Dave Knows Portland

Subscribe to Dave Knows Portland by Email

September 21, 1960: Dr. Albert Starr Performs First Successful Human Heart Valve Replacement Surgery

September 21, 2011 by Dave Leave a Comment

Starr-Edwards Mitral ValveOn September 21, 1960 a team lead by Dr. Albert Starr performed the first successful human mitral valve replacement surgery in Portland at the University of Oregon Medical School, which is now known as Oregon Health & Science University.

52 year old Philip Amundson of Spokane, Washington was the patient who received that first “caged-ball” artificial valve, which had been developed by Starr and Lowell Edwards (The Oregonian, 13 October 1960).

The artificial valve was an early success in the medical device industry and paved the way for countless innovations in the field of cardiology worldwide.

Photo credit: Starr-Edwards Mitral Valve photo by Dr. Mirko Junge, used here under under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Filed Under: History, Oregon, Portland, science, This Day in History

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Dave Knows Portland Archive

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in