A man in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, celebrated the 10th anniversary of his "new" heart yesterday.

Yang Yumin was the Chinese mainland's second patient to have received a heart transplant operation 10 years ago at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University. Yang had been suffering from severe dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure.

The first heart transplant surgery was performed in 1978 in Beijing, and the patient who received the new heart lived for 214 days.

Yang, the 44-year-old man, was once a strong butcher and made a fortune in his business by handling more than 100 pigs per day.

Along with his wife and son, lived in a 100-square meter tile bungalow he had built in his hometown and led a happy life.

At the age of 33, Yang suffered from a long-lasting high fever. Busy with his work and ignorant about medical problems, Yang failed to get timely treatment, which eventually led to his developing life-threatening heart disease.

On his doctor's recommendation, Yang became the first Harbin resident with heart disease to agree to the high-risk surgery. Headed by Professor Xia Qiuming, a team of experts from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University rose to the challenge, actively preparing for Yang's operation and finding a healthy, compatible heart from a 23-year-old man, who had died naturally.

After a four-hour surgery, Yang said he heard a "strange" heart beating powerfully in his chest and realized that he had begun a new life.

After 30 days of recovery, doctors said Yang's blood pressure was normal and his abnormal symptoms had disappeared.

The second year after his surgery, Yang's wife became pregnant and delivered a healthy daughter. She is now 8 years old. Yang has become a medical wonder in China's health care history for his 10 years of healthy living with the transplanted heart.

(China Daily April 27, 2002)