"New Heart Gives Fortunate Brooklyn Dad a New Lease on Life, Just in Time for Father's Day" - Ennica Jacob and Larry McShane
Wilbert Gibson felt like a bomb exploded in his gut, leaving him breathless and paralyzed with pain. The terrifying April episode eventually led the worried 60-year-old Brooklyn man to The Mount Sinai Hospital, where an astute heart doctor discovered Gibson’s excruciating affliction was actually a rare heart condition that’s difficult to detect. An emergency heart transplant saved his life, sending the lucky dad home with his new heart just in time to celebrate Father’s Day. “He had an unusual form of heart failure,” said Donna Mancini, MD, professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “It’s actually an under-recognized disease in the African American population. It really is widely prevalent but under-diagnosed.” Roughly 3-4 percent of African Americans carry the abnormal gene that develops into cardiac amyloidosis, an ailment caused by deposits of proteins in the heart tissue that prevent the vital organ from contracting properly.
— Donna Mancini, MD, Professor, Medicine, Cardiology, Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai